Cathy's Art Diary

Small but good exhibition at Tate Modern showing a selection of work from throughout Phyllida Barlow’s career. I hadn’t realised that a lot of Barlow’s of early work was temporary and was therefore destroyed or recycled into new pieces so there was a rolling screen of photographs of these pieces with just one original 1990s works, a television with rabbit ears. The works were shown with selection of drawings I like how she reuses massive found objects plus her use of colour. There were just a few works but they filled the two gallery spaces. I liked this work called “Untitled: Upturnedhouse2” from 2012. Not sure I saw an unturned house in it but I loved the heft of it. It was interesting watching people interact with the works. No closing date but not permanent Review Evening Standard  

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 su...

Huge installation at Tate Britain by Phyllida Barlow. I loved the way it filled the space of the Duveen Gallery. Your instinct looking from one end is that it’s big but as you walk down you realize there are more pieces filling the space behind the first one. I liked the sense of weight the first piece had yet when you look closely the large hanging metal looking boxes are made of foam and polystyrene. When I was there people were enjoying having their photo taken with it pretending to be lifting up some of the blocks.   I wasn’t so sure about the big cardboard pillar with coloured tape round it! I must admit I have no idea what it was trying to say and I could hear a particularly tidy friends voice in my head saying ‘messy’ at the pile of wood in one corner but generally I liked it! Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard