A series of firsts keep the visitors coming to Hepworth

Not wishing to burst a bubble but when you’ve only been open for eight months, everything you do is a first.

That said, the latest exhibition at the Wakefield gallery is an interesting new direction for the venue.

The £35m Sir David Chipperfield-designed gallery, opened to the public in May last year, has already attracted some high profile names, launching the art gallery with a show by Eva Rothschild and following it up with Clare Woods late last year.

Today sees the launch of the latest exhibition featuring a show between multiple artists for the ‘first time’. What is interesting is that of the artists, the art world maybe know the work of a couple of them – though not necessarily well – and the public may well be coming to all the artists anew.

Heather and Ivan Morison (a married couple who create work together), Ben Rivers and David Thorpe use film, sculpture, installation and performance. Each are exhibited in a gallery of their own in the Hepworth, but brought together in a single exhibition.

Heather and Ivan Morrison and David Thorpe are high profile in the arts world, but Ben Rivers is perhaps less well known.

Bringing these artists together has been, says Simon Wallis, director of The Hepworth, a deliberate decision.

“This is the first time we have done this, but we are planting a marker and saying that the spring slot is a chance for us to start pushing boundaries and bringing in artists who are pushing at the edge of what contemporary artists do,” says Wallis.

“It is an opportunity to introduce to our audience the work of artists that the art world might know about but the wider world doesn’t necessarily. They are all artists who are working in the ongoing spirit of the legacy of Hepworth and Moore, of creating the handmade.”

The three temporary spaces of the Hepworth have been transformed into three distinct spaces, with David Thorpe’s work exhibited in the first room, an installation on 16mm film created by Ben Rivers in the second space, which has been turned into a projection room. In the final room the work of Heather and Ivan Morrison is being displayed. The couple, who work in Brighton and also have a studio in Wales, were commissioned to create a piece for the gallery when it opened in May last year. Their sculpture, The Black Cloud, currently sits on a grass area outside the gallery.

“Yes, it’s nice to have been invited inside,” says Ivan Morrison, who was installing the couple’s piece this week. The installation, made up of several different pieces, is based on the work of novelist Anna Kavan.

“In truth, we weren’t entirely sure about the idea of showing work alongside other artists, but The Hepworth is such a fantastic space that it was difficult to say no.”

Ben Rivers’ exhibition features his recent award-winning film Slow Action, previously shown at the Viennale Film Festival, which imagines a post-apocalyptic society and the work of David Thorpe is an installation of sculptural pieces being shown in Europe for the first time.

With 385,000 visitors in the last eight months, each new exhibition looks set to keep the ‘firsts’ coming and getting visitors through the door.

To June 10.