27 July 2014

"It's just like school!"

Anyone who's worked in a school will immediately relate to the feeling exuded by Phyllida Barlow's sculpture at Tate Britain, which fills a 100-metre-long gallery.
The title, "dock", helps the viewer make sense of it, picking out the containers and pylons and other forms of dockside furniture.
"When I'm actually in the process of making the work in my studio I never consider the audience" says Barlow in this interview - but installing the work is "the moment of maximum fear, because I'm entering the space almost without a script. ... it's a form of choreography: who is the audience, and how will the work entice..."
The audience is choreographed into a certain kind of looking. They become another component of the work.
"Sculpture as a restless object" - yes, it is.

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