New Works in Menorca’s Outdoor Sculpture Trail

Inside the sandstone water tower by the gallery’s main entrance is a neon work by Stefan Brüggemann, depicting the most frequently spoken and typed word on the planet: OK. Depending on the context, it can signify approval, acknowledgment or indifference, and denote acceptability or mediocrity. The neon bluntly exemplifies this range in its irony and nihilism, asking the viewer to consider these possibilities and take up a position. Brüggemann’s text pieces function as provisional observations that must be completed by an audience’s engagement, then impressing themselves as thoughts into the spectator’s consciousness.

The installation ‘Hiplights (or Enlighted Hips)’ (2011) by Pipilotti Rist is strung across the central patio in the Menorca gallery like an enormous celebratory washing line. The remarkable outdoor light work is created from dozens of pairs of underpants and LED lamps and was first conceived for the Hayward Gallery. A pioneer of spatial video art, Rist’s work broaches playful explorations of domesticity, the human body and shame.

At the end of the wild olive tree forest by Cantina is ‘Reaching Out,’ a 2.7-meter bronze sculpture by London-based artist Thomas J Price. Depicting a young woman holding a mobile phone in both hands, the work continues Price’s exploration into technological mediation and intertwined experiences of isolation and human connection within contemporary society. Price subverts stereotypical representations of figures we value in society and traditional power structures through the careful construction and presentation of his fictional characters. Amalgamated from multiple sources, his monumental works are developed through a hybrid approach of traditional sculpting and intuitive digital technology.

Down by the water is a site-specific work by Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, ‘Work No. 3667 WATER’ (2022). The neon is a monument to water: water which is needed for life and of which people are mostly made; water which is fun and dangerous; water which is life-giving and life-threatening. Creed, known for work that is distilled into essential elements or actions, has said ‘it’s good if it feels like a complete no-brainer, so obvious that it is stupid - so as to try to get around the head and into the heart’.