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♪energetic synths♪

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Phyllida Barlow: This used to be my daughter's flat. It's the [br]first time I've had a studio with a window.

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I love this semi-industrial skyline. [br]It suits me really perfectly. [LAUGHS]

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I have a fascination with [br]abandoned industrial objects.

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Out of the back of our house [br]where we look onto a railway yard,

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you see these objects that had this very [br]specific use suddenly becoming moribund.

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To me, the idea of re-making those objects [br]is another form of fossilizing. [LAUGHS]

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Especially with a material [br]like plaster and cement.

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Sculpture can take on the world we're living in.

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It can absorb color and [br]those industrial processes.

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A lot of builders use these[br]colors to mark places which

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needs repairs or mending.

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They're colors [br]of information in the urban environment.

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For a lot of people born in the 40s, [br]the shadow the war cast was very long.

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I had extraordinary memories of London as [br]quite a war-damaged city down in the East End.

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The whole idea of damage and repair is an [br]inherent process of making sculpture for me.

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I've got some blunt[br]scissors here. [laughs]

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[James Tailor] The aesthetic of something[br]looking like it's gonna fall apart

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is something I[br]quite enjoy in my work.

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It's nice to work with another[br]artist who has that kind of

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aesthetic happening.

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She's great.

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She's absolutely lovely.

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[Phyllida] I pay him to say--

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[James] That's exactly what I[br]should say right now.

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It's actually really[br]nice working for her.

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[Phyllida] Good.

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That's another 10 pounds. [Laughs]

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[James] Can I go home early today?

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[Phyllida] During the 60s, there were three very significant [br]sculpture shows in London at the Whitechapel

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Gallery, challenging sculpture in all sorts [br]of ways.

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All the sculptures were painted,

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fiberglass and resin was used as the [br]materials. The traditional skills of

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sculpture were being challenged, questioning [br]that hierarchy that bronze and stone had.

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I found earthy materials like [br]plaster and cement really compelling.

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I started using fiberglass and [br]resin and painting my sculptures.

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Of course, I'd looked at Eva Hesse. I [br]was completely mesmerized by her work.

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That a hanging piece of cloth could [br]actually take on consuming space.

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I was determined to participate in [br]these new approaches to sculpture.

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[sawing]

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There's a sort of method in the madness. [LAUGHS]

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This particular group are [br]all about compression. About

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things being very closed and tightly contained. [br]It's not so much about an idea as about an action.

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Making the smaller works is the [br]initiation of the larger works.

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I know I want the color to be something that's [br]inherent to it and not just applied at the end.

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That's why I'm putting the fabric [br]on the cardboard at this stage,

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so the thing is almost like [br]a rock strata or something.

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[drilling]

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Oopsie. [laughs][br]

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I think I was more interested [br]in processes of production,

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rather than having an idea [br]and then just making it.

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I quite like the long, slow process of drawing, [br]thinking about it, then moving to materials.

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Those thoughts in your head start to diminish and the [br]thing in front of you gains momentum of its own.

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I'm always interested in the slippage [br]memory has and painting is a fantastic

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way of recording that slippage [br]where things are inaccurate.

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A lot of the quick work has a lot to do with

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having so little time in the studio when the [br]children were young, you know.

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So, this is a deal I made with myself that if it was only an hour [br]or two hours, I had to have done something.

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I went when I was 16, as a painter, to art school.

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Painting would have these quite strict procedures [br]about them. There were so many rights and wrongs

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about techniques, about forms. And it became [br]very obvious to me that paintings use walls.

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And to me, walls are very authoritarian. [br][LAUGHS] They decide what the space is.

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A stand-alone sculpture is using the space that [br]we could occupy or something more worthwhile.

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Its possibility for being anarchic [br]excites me a lot. I think I've

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found that like a kind of escape from the [br]whole business of getting something right.

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In the way I work now, which is quite big, [br]my relationship with the sculptures is:

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Where does the space escape to?

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What is [br]the ambition of the space and the way

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that it becomes enclosed? And what happens [br]if that space is explored to the maximum?

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♪curious synths♪

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Yes, they're all[br]upside-down. [laughs]

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Ugh,

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that's annoying.

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I think I must have[br]just shoved them in there.

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Yes.

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This is more looking at where sculpture ends up [br]and what happens if it ends up in places where

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it's not meant to be.

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At a time when I wasn't [br]having exhibitions, saying, "Well, this is good

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enough for me putting my sculpture in this hallway [br]for four hours before people want it back again"

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shows me that there's a great kind of gaping hole [br]about what and where sculpture is meant to be,

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and I think I have sort of always been interested [br]in the object that seems badly behaved.

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This was an object for an ironing board. It's [br]a bit of that kind of nostalgic thing. Oh,

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the work has got worse [LAUGHS] over [br]the years. It hasn't got better.

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Shall we begin the[br]second coat then? Yeah.

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How should we do it?

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Randomly pick a color[br]that isn't a red, yeah.

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Working with a bunch of younger [br]artists is very important for me.

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I've just got stuck on[br]the de Kooning colors.

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I feel hugely responsible and a sort of [br]anxiety that the deal is beneficial to them.

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They're part-time and they're self-employed. I [br]work closely with my studio manager, Adam, and

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we're always thinking, "What can we offer [br]them? Like, a three-month block guaranteeable."

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I think being a mother makes one quite [br]sensitive to what people are going through.

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Yeah, that's fine.

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It's pretty scruffy.

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Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

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At the moment, there are quite a lot of assistants [br]because we're very behind on finishing the work

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for an exhibition.

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The way I inform them [br]of certain aesthetic qualities that I want

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is keeping their actions to something [br]that is more functional than artistic.

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Like a cleaning gesture with a brush [br]that happens to be loaded with paint.

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It's about information and expedience.

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Some of the best times I've had was [br]just taking the work to places so I

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could have a different relationship with [br]it from it being produced in the studio.

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I noticed that I was looking up a lot at [br]the trees, and I thought of something that

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had a sense of industry about it, where the [br]looking up would be looking through a frame

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at the trees and the skies, and that's where [br]the steel frame structure at the top of the

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columns came into existence.

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And then [br]to have something that was possibly

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left behind in a state of entropy, [br]which was these worn out steps.

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It's you and the work and the place. [br]It's a very particular relationship,

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where there's nothing else coming [br]between you and that intention.

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Going it alone is a very powerful experience.

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I'd love to do a piece that could perhaps go [br]very near the sea or in some incredibly remote

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landscape where the audience isn't a factor [br]of the work.

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It's more about the "tree that

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falls in the forest, but if you haven't seen [br]it, did it actually happen" kind of question.

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[LAUGHS]