Curated by Allegra Pesenti and designed by Nissen Richards Studio, the exhibition is inspired by the estate itself, from the rare botanical volumes and illustrated manuscripts in the library to its garden and grounds. The exhibition builds on the work of an important lineage of landscape designers, gardeners, scientists and botanists at Chatsworth over the past six centuries.

The thematic display of ‘The Gorgeous Nothings’ features historical and contemporary works of art from the Devonshire Collections, supported by key loans from national and international museums, and new artist commissions. 

Nissen Richards Studio designed the exhibition furniture that supports the artists’ work throughout the exhibition. Our work includes the graphic design of the interpretation, showcases, walls, easels, plinths that weave their way through the house. We brought in and worked closely with Record Lighting as well as Transmitta and the in-house team, to light and mount the objects and artworks included in the presentation.

‘Gathering’ – to bring together and take in from different places and sources – is an act of preservation and often of survival. The practice of gathering is engrained in the history of Chatsworth and the Devonshire Collections, and it underlies the choice of artists and selection of objects featured in the exhibition.

Specimens of scientific nature, such as flower fossils and minerals collected by Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806), or the over 400 species of British algae catalogued and photographed by Anna Atkins in the 1840s, find visual echoes in the works of over 25 contemporary artists such as Simryn Gill, Elliott Hundley, Liza Lou, Alessandro Piangiamore and Elias Sime.

The practices of collage and assemblage feature prominently. Modulated surfaces and found items converge on the canvases of ‘scavenger’ painter Frank Bowling, while the sculpture of a regal female figure by Chiara Camoni is composed of myriads of components of botanical elements in clay.

The Gorgeous Nothings also explores the parallels between botany and humanity, with a particular focus on the contrasts and complexities of human nature. Hunters and gatherers, beauty and horror, permanence and the ephemeral, sexuality and the senses, mythology and magic are some of the themes encountered on the visitor route.