It was junk. It was quite clearly junk. Great heaps of pallets and tarps, towers of unwanted wood, a cardboard column held together with neon Sellotape: these items filled the lofty Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain in 2014. But anyone encountering Phyllida Barlow’s installation, with its precise construction, couldn’t help but see something more than debris and detritus: there was a radical grandeur, a sensitivity in her sculptures which drew you in and subtly shook you.
Barlow, who has died aged 78, only attracted public attention as a sculptor late in life after a long, influential career as a teacher in art schools. Then after she was noticed, things moved quickly. A show at the Serpentine Gallery in 2010 was followed by representation at a major commercial gallery, a commission for the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and a damehood from Queen Elizabeth II. But her career faced opposition from the start.
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