Phyllida Barlow: Translating the World Around

Phyllida Barlow (1944 – 2023), was one of the most important British sculptors of her generation, whose work often transformed quotidian materials—plywood, cardboard, cement, fabric, plastic—into what she called ‘very impractical and very illogical’ pieces of unexpected beauty. Her death this week at 78 has left a sudden void in the art world, especially among the many artists whom she taught, mentored and befriended over decades as a teacher and a generous guiding light in her field.

‘I think it’s, for me, a question of observing things that are to hand, and that are familiar,’ she told the filmmaker Cosima Spender, of her half-century occupation with everyday industrial and domestic materials for her work. ‘Taking the ordinary and seeing it as extraordinary.’

In celebration of Barlow’s life and work, we revisit ‘PHYLLIDA,’ a 2020 film by Spender that follows the artist through her studio, home and her early years as an emerging artist, educator, mother and partner to her husband, the artist Fabian Peake.

Phyllida
2019, 24 min
Directed by Cosima Spender
Produced by Hauser & Wirth in association with Third Channel and Peacock Pictures

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Hauser & Wirth is an international contemporary and modern art gallery with spaces in Zurich, London, Somerset, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Gstaad, St. Moritz, Monaco and Menorca.

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