The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Fund us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Cannes
      • Sundance London
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • Tumblr

  • RSS


CultureArt

Phyllida Barlow: dock

Phyllida Barlow: dock | Exhibition review
1 April 2014
Kate Knowles
Kate Knowles
Avatar
Kate Knowles
1 April 2014

Phyllida Barlow’s latest series of sculptures, entitled dock, was yesterday unveiled to the public at the Tate Britain. This work was created by the established artist for the Tate Britain Commission, an annual initiative that invites artists to respond to the “collection of British and international art and to the grand spaces of the Duveen Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain”.phy

Barlow, whose definitive style of sculpting involves using inexpensive and everyday materials on a large scale, continues in this vain for this work. The eight pieces are constructed using mostly cardboard, plywood and canvas, are difficult to distinguish from one another, and almost merge into one.

In this way, each piece acts as an inextricable part of a whole – that is, part of the dock environment of the river Thames by which the gallery sits. “I wanted to explore two contradictory aspects” explains Barlow, “the enclosed gallery interiors against the ever-present aspect of the river beyond.”

In viewing the work, one certainly gets this sense as in dock: 5 hung blocks, a piece consisting of a ceiling-height frame of plywood from which huge cardboard blocks are suspended, taking up space obtrusively. Yet moving on to dock:hungprongsplastercoils, made of a similar frame, one is inundated with space enough to move around and observe two hanging giant, anchor-like forms from below.

Indeed, “visitors are encouraged to negotiate their own path through the work, looking up, down, across and around a network of components that hang from the wooden structures or rest on the floor”, making for an unusually interactive experience. One feels in awe and a little wary of the industrial size and sense of one’s surroundings, while being aware of the reality of its flimsiness. It is a little surreal as well as fantastic.

Kate Knowles

Phyllida Barlow: dock is at Tate Britain until 29th October 2014, for further information visit here.

Related Items

More in Art

Rationalism on Set at Estorick Collection

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

If all art is autobiographical, how should we approach it?

The editorial unit
Read More

ISelf Collection: Bumped Bodies at Whitechapel Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

Monet and Architecture at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Daniel Amir
Read More

Must-see London exhibitions this April

Anna Souter
Read More

Joan Jonas – BMW Tate Live Exhibition: Ten Days Six Nights at the Tate

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Tacita Dean: Still Life at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

Tacita Dean: Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More

Isle of Dogs exhibition in London: Explore Wes Anderson’s latest film’s sets

Euan Franklin
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Tickets

Theatre tickets

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Project Gastronomía: How will Londoners eat in 2050? A symposium on gastronomy and multisensory design
    Food & Drinks
  • Gregory Porter at the Royal Albert Hall
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Tribeca Film Festival 2018: On the red carpet with the stars of Westworld season 2
    Cinema
  • Half Breed
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Mayfly at the Orange Tree Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Sherlock Gnomes premiere: A chat with James McAvoy, his co-stars and the film’s creators
    Cinema
  • The Outsider
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Tokio Myers at the Forum
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Outsider: An interview with director Thomas Meadmore
    Cinema
  • Sherlock Gnomes premiere: A chat with James McAvoy, his co-stars and the film’s creators
    Cinema
  • Tokio Myers at the Forum
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Beast
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Lisa Stansfield at the London Palladium
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Bat Out of Hell at the Dominion Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre

Instagram

Something is wrong. Response takes too long or there is JS error. Press Ctrl+Shift+J or Cmd+Shift+J on a Mac.
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Fund us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • New London restaurant openings and pop-ups
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Subscribe
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2018 FL Media Ltd

The Quiet Ones | Movie review
Rio 2 premiere: In conversation on the red carpet in London