Destruction will put finishing touch to artist’s giant work

The first major UK installation by international artist Aeneas Wilder has gone on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield – but without being completely finished.

That will come when its creator kicks it down on Saturday November 3.

Wilder, who was born in Edinburgh in 1967 but is now based in Japan, spent more than 200 hours using uniform lengths of wood, without any fixings, to make Untitled # 155, a freestanding and complex structure, which commands the vast Longside Gallery.

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The Park said its destruction sets out “to ask questions about the idea of artwork as asset or investment, inviting a revaluation of how the value of works of art are assessed.”

The structure is apparently solid but is also extremely fragile. Visitors will also be able to see a video documentary showing how it was built, using a technique he devised in Japan in 1998.

Wilder works alone for days to create increasingly complex and large structure, using as little material as possible.

According to Sculpture Park experts, that by working within a strict framework, he has calculated that an “infinite field of creativity is possible, for example, 3,000 sticks of wood has the potential for 3,000 different compositions, limited only by time and imagination.”