Leeds, U.K.
A newly renovated Henry Moore Institute reopened over the summer with “Hany Armanious: Stone Soup” (on view through November 3, 2024). The refurbishment—the first in HMI’s 31-year history—was led by Leeds-based Group Ginger architects, and the Grade II-listed building has undergone significant internal alterations. A curved bridge leading to Leeds Art Gallery next door now creates a direct link between sculpture from the 18th century through to contemporary practice. These improvements ensure that the Institute retains its prominence as a world-class center for research into sculpture as an evolving art form.
“Stone Soup,” Armanious’s first solo institutional exhibition in Europe and the U.K., features 30 works, including nine pieces made since 2023. Armanious was born in Ismailia, Egypt, and emigrated to Australia in the late 1960s, a cultural shift that required him to relearn much of what he had previously taken for granted. His enquiry into form is closely tied to the preoccupations of Modernist practice, with process of paramount concern. In particular, his use of inconsequential everyday objects and urban detritus references the readymade in sculpture from the early 20th century on. Armanious, however, does not use the object in its raw state. Instead, he re-creates seemingly random items—tabletops, Blu-Tack, leaves, candles, paint trays, noticeboards, and shoelaces—by making a mold of the starting piece, then a unique resin cast. Color, texture, and detailing are rendered in exact replication of the original. Hence, the object undergoes a complete metamorphosis, only to return to its original state, albeit in pigmented polyurethane resin.
“Stone Soup” features standalone sculptures and assemblages sited on the floors, windowsills, and walls of the Institute’s three main galleries. In contrast to their humble constituent parts, these works are often given allegorical titles taken from well-known works of art. For instance, Birth of Venus (2010), a pedestal base and a scrap of gaffer tape, references Botticelli’s masterpiece, and Weeping Woman (2012), which makes use of inverted palm frond stems to mimic teardrops, appropriates the title of a painting by Picasso. Somewhere to Cry (2012), a more overt interpretation of the theme, is a totem consisting of two faces paired with a found equivalent. In a sense, this approach renders the master work of art obsolete, and, instead, offers a celebration of the banal and the easily overlooked.
The most successful pieces are those that move away from clear reference to reveal more complex structures and interpretations. In Moths, roughened pupae-like forms appear in unexpected locations—on a windowsill or halfway up a wall. Portrait (2020), a nose set within a block, is notable for its sheer wit; it is highly expressive, even without eyes or a mouth, and its position on the wall, level with the viewer’s head, makes it strangely empathetic. Among the most recent works, The World (2023) is derived from an uprooted section of pavement, with its substrate still attached. The form has been inverted though, so the base resembles a plinth housing a collection of stones, thereby creating the impression of a miniature cityscape.
Informally positioned throughout the spaces, the works are almost marooned, as if they had been left there by accident. Corridor (2024), a folded projector screen, is propped up in a corner; Sleeping Under Water (2023), a picture frame minus its picture, leans against a wall; while the burned-out candles that make up Frequently Asked Questions (2015) lie scattered on the floor. The exhibition title, “Stone Soup,” is taken from a folk tale in which a traveler concocts a cauldron of soup, at first from nothing, yet, by employing the art of trickery, ensures an entire village is fed. This sparse show performs a similar act of conceptual magic. The pieces on display are muted in tone and squat in construction, in contrast to the high-ceilinged spaces, which are light and airy. This architectural loftiness dwarfs the work, endowing it with a curious invisibility, much like the covert ingredients used by the traveler in his cauldron of soup.
