Phyllida Barlow

The Bourgeois gallery opens the exhibition with singular works that span almost four decades of Barlow’s career, ranging from the remake of ‘shedmesh, 1975 – 2020’ (1975 – 2020), to two of the artist’s last works, ‘untitled: hollow; 2022’ (2022) and ‘untitled: modernsculpture; 2022’ (2022). These works are part of a continuous investigation of the language and possibilities of sculpture, which emerged as Barlow found her voice as a student through exploring the legacy of British and European post-war sculpture. Key works in this display make references to other artists who became part of her internal conversation for many years, notably Alighiero Boetti, Eva Hesse and Tony Smith. These works engage critically with the grid and cube of minimalism, post-minimalism’s resistance to geometry and the materiality of Arte Povera.

This gallery takes this habit as its methodology; key gatherings of works are inspired by juxtapositions Barlow made from disparate parts which can be found in photographic documentation of her exhibitions. Other choices and sequences take care to respect some of Barlow’s key principles and preferences, for example she preferred to block entrances and exits, inducing curiosity in the viewer. She often placed obstacles in the way of visitors, in their pathway or disturbing their line of sight.

‘TORSO’ and ‘LOAF’ (1986 – 1989) are among the earliest works included, alongside maquettes and drawings that have never been shown in public. The works represent motifs repeatedly explored in her sculpture, including several works on display elsewhere in the exhibition, while others touch on primary themes and interests in her art and life. Barlow’s first and last group of paintings on canvas are also on display. Small-scale and captivating, the painterly experiments were part of a move to larger-scale canvases that were to be debuted in this very exhibition.

Barlow’s sculptures are also on view in the farmyard, courtyard and garden, including works being shown in the open air for the first time.

Beginning in the farmyard, works such as ‘PRANK: jinx’ (2022 – 2023) tower over visitors on arrival. ‘untitled: megaphone’ (2014) and ‘untitled: stackedchairs’ (2014) overflow from the gallery’s granary building—a site which has never-before been used to exhibit works—parodying its original purpose for storing items such as grain. Two stacked boulder works, ‘untitled: triplestackboulders’ (2014) and ‘untitled: squatboulders’ (2014), are nestled in the internal Cloister Courtyard.

The Oudolf Field is animated and disrupted by the artist’s PRANK series (2022 – 2023). Barlow based each steel and fiberglass sculpture on a familiar object that might be found at home or in an artist’s studio. An oddly irregular white form first used by the artist in the early 1990s, known as ‘rabbit ears,’ appears on each angular steel assemblage.