Künstlergespräch / Artist talk

How do objects and architecture interact with each other? Is height relevant? Can art be defined by stretch? And most importantly, who decides if something is sculpture? In a short lecture, Phyllida Barlow will broach these issues, before entering into an open conversation with director and curator Daniel Baumann and the public.

Barlow brings her expertise as a teacher of over forty years at Slade School of Art to the table, as well as a lifetime of artistic endeavor. Simply put, listening to Phyllida Barlow speak about art makes you (want to) understand it better.
Nevertheless, don’t expect to hear an explanation of the exhibition demo at Kunsthalle Zürich. As the artist articulated it in a conversation with Pippa Coles in 2004: «There isn’t an explanation through language. I’m always trying to think of words which might do that and then I think well no, they don’t, it is something that art history of the theory of deconstruction has thrown at us. It suggests that there is a tool kit that we can now use for looking at things – which there isn’t.»* In that manner, one might add: Come for the artist talk, stay for the art!

* (in: Coles & Fabrizi, Phyllida Barlow: Peninsula, Gateshead: BALTIC, 2005)