Phyllida Barlow "Unscripted" @hauser and wirth somerset

There was something very playful here, which acknowledges the heaviness of damage and destruction as its subject but does not buy into it wholesale.

The recurrent motif of bombed-out buildings and concurrent precariously-positioned plaster makes itself known throughout the work of Barlow in this retrospective at Hauser and Wirth's scenic farmstead gallery. However, Barlow does not carve us out a dark path towards distress or depression as the works of Anselm Kiefer might, but rather leaves us with a certain somber sweetness, and moreover a hesitant curiosity.

Somewhat similar to Philip Guston (and not just in the recurrent use of cadmium pink!) Barlow looks at the demolition of the Second World War with the eyes of a child. She deals with heavy subjects in an extremely light way, the difficulty of which should not be undercut by the superficially simple modes of construction she employs.

Barlow's work seems so very accessible from the outside -- almost like a path in a maze or a slightly-ajar doorway eyed from the three-quarters view; however, one moves closer to find that the seemingly-wide apertures are quite narrow indeed, and might not even exist at all. However, there is no need to fear this aporia...

Though it proves impossible to walk through Barlow's sculptures, after looking a bit closer one retains the sense of being able to pick them up. Perhaps in opposition to the playfully-disguised heaviness of her subjects, Barlow makes use of materials which seem quite heavy but are actually deceptively light: expanding foam covered in a thin layer of concrete; cardboard presenting as stone, etc...

Barlow's sculptures in the outdoor garden of the gallery echo this subversion of expectations around hardness and softness, lightness and heaviness, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the fleshy plastic and concrete legs of Sarah Lucas. She pairs bunny ears which might appear on a stuffed children's toy with rusting metal frames which one would more expect to find lying in an abandoned industrial site. Barlow hereby proclaims the realm of detritus as her own, whether that be the remnants of forsaken buildings or the ephemera of childhood.

These sculptures are, somehow, perfectly at home in the lush landscape of the gallery's garden. Perhaps that is the thing about an object which proposes a contradiction from its very inception: it fits in just about anywhere.

The show respectfully offers a very complete view of Barlow's process: we see her sculptures from their first ideation in the form of paintings, through to her mock-ups, and finally in their full realisation as these unavoidable objects with an altogether overpowering presence.

The film running alongside the show gives us a very intimate view of Barlow's work process as well, in which she discusses beginning her career as a female artist studying at the Slade and all the sexism which came free with tuition. Perhaps in response to the male tutor who told her in her first week that she ought not expect him to spend too much time on her work, as she would probably be a housewife by age thirty, Barlow continuously reminds us that we cannot be fooled by our expectations. Indeed, Barlow did have five children and continued to make quite influential work -- and not even in spite of her motherhood!

Here, Barlow is doubly disruptive: Barlow's subversion of our expectations, in both her use of material and her actions, does not even conform to our natural expectations of contradiction; if she really wanted to give the metaphorical finger to her graduate tutor, one would expect her not to have children at all. This is to say: the work and biography of the late artist, instead of simply disproving our assumptions, rather offer us new possibilities in the realms of both matter and meaning.