After a multi-million pound investment and an amazing transformation, Milton Keynes Gallery finally opens its doors to the public this week.
The new gallery is a bold beautiful space and deserves a truly special exhibition to begin its new phase. And that is precisely what The Lie of The Land is.
“The Lie of the Land is open to interpretation,” gallery director Anthony Spira told Sammy Jones.
“How did we get from Stowe, and Capability Brown's quintessential English landscape a few miles away, to this radical modernist grid in Milton Keynes?
"And what is the journey we had to go through,” he says, asking the question which this enriching collection of works will explore...
Works from more than 85 artists are spread through the five new galleries, and the featured pieces cross genres, media and timeframes: “It looks at culture, leisure, planning and some architecture,” Anthony explains.
Canaletto, known for his beautiful Venetian views, is represented in The Lie of the Land, with his capture of The Grand Walk, Vauxhall Gardens.
For two hundred years, the space operated as a place of enjoyment for the masses: “Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the mid-18th century was one of the big outdoor public leisure facilities. People would go there to watch a concert, there was a bit of a carnival, and there were all sorts of dodgy activities, and lots of prostitution, too.
"It was basically a very early example of a festival,” Anthony says.
“What interests us is how gardening transitioned from being something the aristocracy paid people to work on their land and do, to becoming a domestic hobby...”
Anthony continued: “The show is very much about leisure and how hobbies have changed over the last 250 years, according to land ownership.
“It goes from the aristocracy hunting and shooting on their private land, to shopping centres, nightclubs and festivals.”
And when you understand that, you can understand how a banner and loudhailer from Greenham Common finds a space alongside the first ever lawnmower!
“We've got all sorts of strange things because we want to make it more interesting.
“There is also this idea of false promises that people made - there was an incredible utopian vision for the garden city movement or the public parks, but actually a lot of those developments, and particularly the victorian parks, were built on the back of slavery, empire and exclusion.”
The Lie of the Land is curated by Anthony with Sam Jacob, Claire Louise Staunton, Fay Blanchard, 6a architects founding director Tom Emerson, Gareth Jones and Niall Hobhouse.
Visitors will snake their way through the art spaces which all take a different notion of The Lie of the Land, and are named accordingly; from the 'No Right of Way' gallery to the 'Through A Glass, Darkly' gallery.
Each of the spaces will engage and provoke, and with a number of City Club related pieces included, Milton Keynes will put its own stamp on the exhibition.
From the aforementioned old Masters, to the distinctly modern,The Lie of The Land takes us through the Victorian Parks movement, the Garden City Movement and on into the New Towns Movement.
It's a fascinating look at how our history and our landscape has influenced and informed our hobbies.
“It is very eclectic and very playful,” Anthony promises.
See The Lie of the Land at Milton Keynes Gallery from March 16 – May 26, 2019.
Images: Johan Dehlin
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