Viewing art is good for the soul but dragging your kids or an unenthusiastic spouse around a stuffy old gallery isn’t. So why not take it outside and see art in a natural setting?

Art galleries are closely controlled environments, principally because the art in question is valuable and often fragile. Anyone who is into art knows the simple pleasure that viewing it can bring. But the formal atmosphere that galleries create can alienate many and implicitly discourages parents from bringing small children, whose receptive minds may in fact have the most to gain from art. An obvious solution is to view art that is hardy enough to be viewed in an uncontrolled, natural environment – outside art, in other words.

The Artist
Chris Drury is an international land artist who sets his work in its natural environment wherever possible. He argues that this democratises his art, making it available to all. ‘In the clean white space of a museum everything extraneous is cut out, to give a kind of ‘temple’ experience. Outside however the work has to deal with the world as it is, plus a much wider cross section of the populace. I think this is a very good and real thing,’ he says.

Displaying art outside can also allow you to explore how it interacts with its environment. Drury uses materials already present within the environment for his creations, injecting an interesting aspect to the final works.

The Environment
‘I have works all over the world that interact with place and culture. I have had works that exist in a place for a short period of time and that interact with that place,’ he says. Some of his works actually grow and change to provide new ideas as well as a habitat for wildlife. The Heart of Reeds is one such work in Lewes. It is a 1.6-hectare reed bed, constructed by Drury using the cross-section of the human heart for inspiration.

‘A masseur in Japan once said to me that he puts people in touch with their bodies in much the same way I put people in touch with their landscapes,’ he says.

But it’s not all rosy in the reed garden because art in an uncontrolled space has to contend with more than peoples’ children clambering over it and the local weather. ‘Some people react quite negatively to what I do and vandalism is ubiquitous. If the work is beautiful someone will want to destroy it, if it is ugly or confrontational it will be destroyed officially,’ Drury says.

Plastic in paradise?
But what of more ‘conventional’ sculptures and art. If a reed bed is in tune with its environment then surely a plastic sculpture on a plinth belongs indoors rather than in a flower meadow?

‘All materials are natural even ones that are created by man. Since we are of nature then our artefacts must be too,’ Drury contends. So the argument boils down to not what ‘belongs’ outside but what can survive its rigours. Thankfully there are several far-sighted galleries that have embraced the al fresco approach to art and exhibit outside. Because lets face it, as long as the weather holds, being in the open air is just far more fun.

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites.