Phyllida Barlow: Set

The Fruitmarket Gallery’s summer exhibition is a major exhibition of new work made specially for The Fruitmarket Gallery by Phyllida Barlow, one of the international art world’s brightest stars. Born in Newcastle in 1944, and with a career spanning six decades, Barlow is known for monumental sculpture made from simple materials such as plywood, cardboard, fabric, plaster, paint and plastic. Physically impressive and materially insistent, her sculptures are inspired by engaging with the outside world, and with the experience of living and looking.

Barlow’s most recent success was dock, made for the prestigious Duveen Commission at Tate Britain, which challenged the architecture of the grand entrance galleries with breathtakingly large yet curiously homely sculptures. We are very proud that now she has agreed to work her magic on The Fruitmarket Gallery, with an exhibition that sets out, in her own words, to ‘turn the Gallery upside down’. She is making a new series of large sculptures that will engulf the Gallery in art, spilling from the upper gallery over the staircase and into the ground floor, enticing the visitor from the street and into the world of her visual imagination.

A new monograph is being produced by The Fruitmarket Gallery to mark this exhibition, Phyllida Barlow: Sculpture 1963–2015, written by Frances Morris, Head of Collections and International Art at Tate. Reproducing many works never seen before, this major monograph will illustrate more than 100 works, and will be an indispensible resource on the practice of this important British sculptor, who continues to be lauded by artists and critics for her work, and for her influence on several generations of artists.
The publication will be launched at the Edinburgh Art Festival and will include images of Barlow’s installations at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas in 2014, Tate Britain, Hauser & Wirth Somerset and London, the 55th Venice Biennale, and the 2013 Carnegie International, among many others. Published by The Fruitmarket Gallery and Hatje Cantz.