I think one of the things is the solidity of something then how its shadow is the opposite of that and also reflects something about its temporal qualities I mean in a gallery it doesn't but one's aware of shadows having this sense of movement about them. When I did the set for a domineo two years ago in Munich it was incredible when the lighting person came on and could do these things that made the objects actually disappear because the director of the opera house didn't want stage sets he wanted sculptures. The films of Robert Brestle pickpocket and a man escaped where he takes apart his prison cell in order to use absolutely everything in it as a means for his escape were like an
In March this year, we went to Finsbury Park in London to the home of Phyllida Barlow to interview her for the A brush with… podcast. Tragically, Phyllida died just a few days later. So this conversation is a tribute to one of the most significant British artists of recent years. Ardently committed to sculpture and convinced of its special power, she was coruscatingly erudite and perceptive, yet also irreverent and suspicious of orthodoxies. This was evident in her combinations of simple materials such as wood, plaster and scrim, cement, paint and fabric in extraordinary sculptures and installations. She managed to achieve at once awkwardness and grace, humour and pathos, the grand and the intimate. Among much else, Phyllida discusses the morality imposed on sculpture in her art school days, the underacknowledged “dirty side of making” in Marcel Duchamp’s work, her admiration for Louise Nevelson and Eduardo Chillida, the writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the films of Robert Bresson. Plus she answers our usual questions, including a moving response to the ultimate question, “What is art for?”
Phyllida Barlow, Chillida Leku, Hernani, near San Sebastian, Spain, until 22 October; The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Toronto, 8 September-4 February 2024.
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