Passing Strange: British Land Art Through Time

18 Jul-2 Nov 2025

PV 17 Jul 2025, 6-8pm

Andy Goldsworthy, Penpont Sycamore 1989, 1989, leaves. Credit: Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery). Purchased through the Henry Moore Foundation with the aid of a grant from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 1991. © Andy Goldsworthy. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. Photo: Norman Taylor.

Overview

This exhibition showcases the exceptionally rich collection of artworks associated with ‘British land art’ in the Leeds Sculpture Collections.

Highlighting works by Tacita Dean (b.1965), Anya Gallaccio (b.1963), Andy Goldsworthy (b.1956), John Hilliard (b.1945) and David Nash (b.1945), this display considers how ideas of transition, ephemerality, and anti-monumentality are used by these artists to defamiliarise landscape and natural forms. The exhibition takes its title from Shakespeare’s Othello in which Desdemona describes Othello’s tales of adventure through extraordinary landscapes as ‘strange, passing strange’.

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Artists