Phylida Barlow: cul-de-sac


Monumental exhibition at the Royal Academy of new work by Phylida Barlow.

I say monumental at the pieces were large and created wonderful indoor landscapes and lovely vistas between rooms. At first I felt it was an odd space, and I’d still like to see some of them out of doors, but found that the rooms acted as a frame for the work. I wondered at first what he title meant but then realised that you had to walk back through the show to exit so the galleries acted as a cul-de-sac. This made you relook at the works having seen all of them and you saw different things in them.

I loved the way you could see a flash of colour from the first work which was large cotton canvas’s draped over stands, throughout the show. A lime green one in particularly really popped. I also loved a work at the end with huge interlocking tripods holding up large blocks which looked heavy but on closer examination were polystyrene.

My only moan was that all the work was called “untitled” with a subtitle. I’m not a fan of untitled works and wasn’t sure what she didn’t just use the subtitle as the title.

Closes on 23 June 2019

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