I think one of the greatest books I know is The Idiot by Dostoevsky. It's just a whole psychological thriller because there's something perilous about it. Obviously I've only read it in translation so I have no idea what that's often the thing isn't it? What must it feel like to read the original words? Exactly yeah well we went to the Prado and I saw the Las Meninas for the first time the original he said. Have you seen it as the urine or do you want me to take your picture instead? If not, please email emma.glanfield@mailonline.co.uk.
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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