{"id":15051,"date":"2014-07-16T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T09:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=15051"},"modified":"2014-07-15T17:32:34","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T16:32:34","slug":"phyllida-barlows-mad-furniture-factory-explosion-and-british-folk-art-at-the-tate-britain-millbank-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/phyllida-barlows-mad-furniture-factory-explosion-and-british-folk-art-at-the-tate-britain-millbank-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Phyllida Barlow’s mad furniture factory explosion and British Folk Art at the Tate Britain, Millbank, London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

This year’s Tate Britain Commission is a real feast for the eyes, with Phyllida Barlow’s massive ramshackle wooden constructions\u00a0almost filling every inch of the gallery’s voluminous\u00a0Duveen Sculpture Court.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

Entitled Dock, the piece is dominated by five battered containers, suspended on what looks like a particularly\u00a0precarious assemblage of wood scaffolding, straps and braces.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

Like a supersized child’s balsa wood fantasy, the work dwarfs those walking under it, with its crazy selection of bolted on joints and criss-crossed beams making it almost impossible to work out what is supporting what.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

Walking through the hall, you come across a tall column that looks like its made of a giant battered piece of cardboard, held together with brightly coloured electrical tape.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

An almighty pile of wooden pallets supporting a\u00a0half-toppled array of roughly painted sheets of thin wood follows.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

At times it looks like the aftermath of an explosion in a furniture factory, with pieces of wood hammered on at random angles, while the\u00a0huge suspended tube looks likes it’s ready to be used in a mediaeval siege.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

I loved the work. It was unexpected, fun and chaotic and I think I enjoyed it almost as much as Adrian Searle at the Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What an exhilarating work this is. Gothic, slapstick, over-reaching, trammelling, dock presents the world as theatre set, a gigantic child’s play of sculptural ambition, an anti-monumental act of deconstruction, a huge bricolage.<\/p>\n

It is also a wonderful parody of sculpture’s history of self-regarding masculinity, all that conspicuous labour and heft and muscle-flexing strain. Dock is a summation of Barlow’s work to date. There’s a word for this: Wow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

Once my senses had\u00a0sufficiently recovered, I took time to explore some of the British collection, soaking\u00a0up some of my favourite works of art, including John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott<\/a> from 1888 (below).<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

His work isn’t particularly\u00a0\u00a0fashionable, but I’m always drawn to the industrial noir of Atkinson Grimshaw (below), with Liverpool Quay by Moonlight<\/a> from 1887 being a painting soaked in winter mist, glistening gas lamps and atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"tate-britain-art-1\"<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

I couldn’t afford the\u00a0hefty\u00a0\u00a314.50 to view the British Folk Art exhibition<\/a>, so instead immersed myself in the books that accompanied the exhibition, and saw some fantastic work.<\/p>\n

If you’ve the cash to spare, I’d suggest that it’s well worth a visit – otherwise head for the bookstore!<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

Students show off their work inside the gallery – various projects were being held the day I was there.<\/p>\n

\"Phyllida<\/p>\n

A look up at the impressive dome of the 1897 gallery.<\/p>\n

More: Tate Britain site<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s Tate Britain Commission is a real feast for the eyes, with Phyllida Barlow’s massive ramshackle wooden constructions\u00a0almost filling every inch of the gallery’s voluminous\u00a0Duveen Sculpture Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,193],"tags":[34,925,202,924],"class_list":["post-15051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-places","tag-art","tag-phyllida-barlow","tag-tate","tag-tate-britain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/tate-britain-phyllida-barlow-011.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3UL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15051"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15060,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15051\/revisions\/15060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}