0:00:04 > 0:00:08There's a comedy in the way objects fail.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13Buster Keaton took objects and their function...
0:00:15 > 0:00:17..as a starting point for their demise.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20That is my relationship with materials.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25And my relationship with making things.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27Phyllida Barlow's precarious-looking
0:00:27 > 0:00:32yet ambitious installation at Tate Britain in 2014
0:00:32 > 0:00:34secured her art-world reputation.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37At some point, things are going to fall over.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43At some point, things are going to collapse.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45And they're going to become something else.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48I want to follow that trail.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55For me, that was the moment where I thought, "Oh, God," you know,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58"she's a really, really great artist."
0:00:58 > 0:01:00And... Sorry, I hadn't thought that before.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03No, that's fine!
0:01:09 > 0:01:12It's over 30 years since I've been to Phyllida Barlow's house
0:01:12 > 0:01:16in Finsbury Park, because I used to live near here.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19And it's just great to be seeing her again.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23We were young mothers with young children together.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25We went to the same baby-sitting circle
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and we went to the playgroup together.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32SHE RINGS BELL
0:01:35 > 0:01:37- Hello! - Hello, how nice to see you!
0:01:37 > 0:01:41- And you as well. - And how funny to...
0:01:41 > 0:01:44- be back in the neighbourhood, as it were.- Yes.
0:01:44 > 0:01:49Gosh. This is... This is very much as I remember it.
0:01:49 > 0:01:50- Really?- Yes.
0:01:50 > 0:01:55Well, you haven't done any drastic redecorating, have you?
0:01:55 > 0:01:59No, no. It's still falling down and...
0:01:59 > 0:02:02- Yeah.- ..a kind of potential slum, I'm afraid.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11Against all odds, Phyllida Barlow achieved art-world acclaim
0:02:11 > 0:02:15after several decades of being ignored by curators and collectors.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Some of her sculptures look like an abstract theatrical set.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26She provokes close encounters with massive forms
0:02:26 > 0:02:29that threaten to topple.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33She ignores the rules, by working on a monumental scale
0:02:33 > 0:02:36with the most unmonumental of materials -
0:02:36 > 0:02:41offcut wood, Styrofoam, chicken wire and plaster.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45With a team of eight assistants, she's now up against the clock,
0:02:45 > 0:02:48preparing for a major exhibition in Zurich.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02But I think the top isn't big enough to take the roll of...
0:03:05 > 0:03:07..that roll of material.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10She's also been chosen to represent Britain
0:03:10 > 0:03:14at the upcoming Olympics of the art world, the Venice Biennale.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21As an artist who raised five kids on a part-time teacher's salary,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25Phyllida Barlow is also a survival artist.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28Joel, was there another of those?
0:03:30 > 0:03:31Over there.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33But anyway, big, big, big congratulations.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36- It's great that you're doing the Venice Biennale.- Thank you.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38- And great that you're up for the Hepworth Prize.- Thank you.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42- Yes.- And great that you've also got something big coming up in Zurich.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47There seems to be a moment where... that something makes it known,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50but in terms of the job in hand, it's...
0:03:50 > 0:03:53- You feel you've been doing the same thing.- Yes, exactly.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57We're the same age, so I like to see oldies blossoming.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00- You know, reaching peak... peak career success.- Yeah.
0:04:00 > 0:04:07Yes. We'll go into the studio now, which you may remember.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11'In the back of Phyllida's house was her original studio,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13'which I remember as a shed.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16'This is my first visit in over 30 years.'
0:04:16 > 0:04:22I had to do a lot of renovation of this studio here.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26Got that slightly mouldy smell that I remember.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28THEY LAUGH
0:04:28 > 0:04:29But what I do remember is -
0:04:29 > 0:04:32it's just really embarrassing to remember now -
0:04:32 > 0:04:35is that I'd known you for quite some time and knew that you were
0:04:35 > 0:04:38a sculptor, but never seen any of your work, so one day,
0:04:38 > 0:04:41one bright day, I said, "Oh, do take me to your studio,"
0:04:41 > 0:04:43expecting some sort of marble head,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47or something that looked to me recognisably like sculpture,
0:04:47 > 0:04:53and then I realised that these piles of wood or whatever WERE the sculptures.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55I don't think I was...
0:04:55 > 0:04:58- I think you were... - Well, I probably TRIED to be polite.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02- Oh, no, no, you weren't! - THEY LAUGH
0:05:04 > 0:05:10These are drawings all done prior to beginning the Zurich works,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13but they were definitely the catalysts
0:05:13 > 0:05:17for how the work gets produced.
0:05:17 > 0:05:24These are the platforms that are between three and five metres high.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28Does it make you sort of cynical that you've...
0:05:30 > 0:05:33..sort of been discovered as if you were nowhere
0:05:33 > 0:05:36in the last few years, and now suddenly you're famous?
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Does that make you feel sour?
0:05:38 > 0:05:44I mean, I know that that's not the truth, but to, as it were,
0:05:44 > 0:05:48the average newspaper reader or... it will seem that
0:05:48 > 0:05:52they are hearing the name Phyllida Barlow for the first time.
0:05:52 > 0:05:58I couldn't have done the... attention bit
0:05:58 > 0:06:01in my late 20s, early 30s.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02- Oh, really?- Like some.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04You wouldn't have played the media game.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06- I wouldn't have been able to.- No.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08I would have been...
0:06:09 > 0:06:10..overridden by it.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14- But what...- In some way. - Oppressed by it?
0:06:14 > 0:06:17Yes, yes. I think I wasn't ready for it.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19I don't know how else to explain it.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25I think I needed a long, slow time to...
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Yes, for confidence to build, is it?
0:06:27 > 0:06:31Not confidence, but for the work to have some kind of...
0:06:33 > 0:06:34..maturity about it.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39'Making art was the only thing that I wanted to do,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43'from about the age of 16-and-a-half,
0:06:43 > 0:06:48'after I'd had a brief flirtation with being a zoologist.'
0:06:48 > 0:06:54So what I'm interested in getting is make those folds a bit more present.
0:06:54 > 0:06:59At 16, Phyllida enrolled at Chelsea Art School.
0:07:03 > 0:07:08Art-school politics in the 1960s were like a Cold War battleground,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12where traditional art values fought tooth and nail
0:07:12 > 0:07:14against experimentation.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18I went to Chelsea Art School full-time, after my first term.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21It was the beatnik era.
0:07:21 > 0:07:27It was poetry and writing and working all night.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31For me, at that time, as a 16-to-19-year-old,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34some incredibly inspired teachers.
0:07:34 > 0:07:39I had to think very hard what it was about sculpture
0:07:39 > 0:07:42that was so attractive to me.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44And it was the materials.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47By the time I got to the Slade,
0:07:47 > 0:07:54which was a much more established and fixed institution, in a way,
0:07:54 > 0:07:58I was perplexed by authority
0:07:58 > 0:08:04and authoritarian judgment of good and bad and right and wrong.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07- You just say- BLEEP, - quite honestly.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16I mean, it must have been very hard with five children,
0:08:16 > 0:08:20and I don't seem to remember you having a Norland nanny or anything,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22- did you?- No.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27And having to teach, and yet you still managed to carry on working.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29I gather you worked at night a lot, didn't you?
0:08:29 > 0:08:35Yes, yes. When eventually I had five children by 1981.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40- Yes.- I have to emphasise that it wasn't just me, you know,
0:08:40 > 0:08:45it was Fabian and me, and I think that it was a double act.
0:08:45 > 0:08:50Obviously, we're delighted to have five children,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54but things needed to be managed, I suppose.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58Fabian Peake is an artist, writer and poet,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02who was also a part-time teacher for decades.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06His father, Mervyn Peake, was the author of Gormenghast.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11Fabian's artwork often incorporates language or poetry.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13The cutout he's working on features
0:09:13 > 0:09:17an excerpt from Milton's Paradise Lost.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20I'm not sure how I'm going to use it yet,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24but it might be something that is strapped to a tree.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28You know, perhaps giving off sort of associations
0:09:28 > 0:09:30with the tree of knowledge.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37Phyllida and Fabian met at Chelsea Art School in the '60s,
0:09:37 > 0:09:38while both were students.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44I knew that our lives were terribly equal.
0:09:44 > 0:09:50We were both serious artists and neither of us doubted
0:09:50 > 0:09:53the involvement with their art of the other.
0:09:53 > 0:09:59We came back for the autumn term and she'd grown her hair very long,
0:09:59 > 0:10:03and it was terrifically attractive, you know, and...
0:10:03 > 0:10:04- HE LAUGHS - And...
0:10:04 > 0:10:08So we got to know each other soon after that.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13But in a way, we were lucky that we...
0:10:13 > 0:10:15our lives were very similar, really.
0:10:15 > 0:10:21Both artists, both managing to have part-time teaching jobs,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23which could keep... it wasn't brilliantly paid,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27but it kept the money ticking over.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32We were struggling,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35crazily struggling to keep everything afloat.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43The two activities of being an artist and having children
0:10:43 > 0:10:46are totally, completely incompatible.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51Therefore, there is no method for how you survive.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55There's only the hope that you have.
0:10:56 > 0:11:01I mean, the only thing that you have is this incredible,
0:11:01 > 0:11:02enduring love for them -
0:11:02 > 0:11:04that is the one thing that...
0:11:05 > 0:11:07..offers survival.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20Across more than three decades of teaching, art trends changed,
0:11:20 > 0:11:25art schools evolved and the YBA generation emerged.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30A number of Phyllida's students gained recognition and acclaim.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36Jealousy and competitiveness and strong emotional responses
0:11:36 > 0:11:43to contemporaries who are getting recognition is very complex
0:11:43 > 0:11:48and you can see how painful it is to young artists, you know!
0:11:48 > 0:11:51And it was for myself as well.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Rachel Whiteread was a student of Phyllida's
0:11:58 > 0:12:02and became the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07Her works often take the form of ghostly casts.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12She was a YBA who exhibited in the pivotal Sensation show of 1997.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16Phyllida was always
0:12:16 > 0:12:20so completely and utterly delighted for my success, you know,
0:12:20 > 0:12:25and, yeah, in a really special way, actually.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29I'm not saying she's an angel,
0:12:29 > 0:12:33because she's been very bitchy about some other people,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36but that's quite understandable, and fine.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40Embrace it. Just take it on.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43Take on the green-eyed monster and absorb it
0:12:43 > 0:12:48and get to know and enjoy the work
0:12:48 > 0:12:52or the people who are having that acclaim.
0:12:52 > 0:12:53Do you miss teaching, actually?
0:12:53 > 0:12:55No. Not at all.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59Good. Your work seems to me to have got bigger and bolder
0:12:59 > 0:13:02in the last ten years. Is that right?
0:13:02 > 0:13:06Since that time, since leaving teaching,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10since coming on board with Hauser & Wirth,
0:13:10 > 0:13:16has taken a much more intended and ambitious course.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19I think that was the big shift. That there was someone there
0:13:19 > 0:13:22to support and facilitate what she was doing.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26We would be assisting her with loans for exhibitions,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30we would be assisting her with production for new works.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33And we would be maintaining her archive
0:13:33 > 0:13:36and we would begin, basically... we'd bring her into the gallery
0:13:36 > 0:13:39and begin talking about her as one of our artists,
0:13:39 > 0:13:43so trying to form new collections for her with collectors,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46with curators, with press, and so on.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50In contrast to a back-yard shed,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54having a gallery means having a studio the size of an airplane hangar.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00To be able to see your work as it might possibly be in the space
0:14:00 > 0:14:02is a very new experience.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04And...
0:14:06 > 0:14:09We can have then several works
0:14:09 > 0:14:14all going at the same time, and that's also a new experience.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21There's a lot of very sort of overt human playfulness
0:14:21 > 0:14:24in some of your early works, and the ones I particularly like
0:14:24 > 0:14:26are the objects for a television
0:14:26 > 0:14:30and objects for an ironing board and all the rest of it.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34Without galleries or museums inviting her to exhibit,
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Phyllida creatively took matters into her own hands.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40She invaded the living rooms of her friends.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45These absurdist and playful sculptures turn a TV set,
0:14:45 > 0:14:50an ironing board or an upright piano into plinths for her work.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54- They seem to show great confidence as a sculptor...- Mmm.
0:14:54 > 0:14:55"Here is something,"
0:14:55 > 0:14:58and great confidence in your own sense of humour?
0:14:58 > 0:15:01What came out of those was my relationship with
0:15:01 > 0:15:04the farcical side of making sculpture.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07You like those slapstick films?
0:15:07 > 0:15:08Yes, yeah.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13Were there any particular things that you remember or that were...?
0:15:13 > 0:15:18Yes, I think Buster Keaton's relationship with inanimate objects
0:15:18 > 0:15:23and how his extraordinary antics are just, again,
0:15:23 > 0:15:28a kind of proof of the farcical relationship we can have
0:15:28 > 0:15:29with inanimate things.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32And then in particular, maybe Laurel and Hardy,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35when they're commissioned, so to speak,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37to rebuild somebody's house,
0:15:37 > 0:15:41- and in the process of doing that, they actually destroy it.- Yes!
0:15:47 > 0:15:49There is something about sculpture
0:15:49 > 0:15:54that isn't just about perfect craft and perfect technique.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56It's about mistakes.
0:15:56 > 0:15:58- And the battle with the object! - Yes. Yes.
0:15:58 > 0:16:03Which is absolutely my relationship with making,
0:16:03 > 0:16:04- that it's a tussle.- Yes.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15So, there is something about the endeavour that I find comical.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18- Yes.- You know, that I would have this relationship
0:16:18 > 0:16:23with making something that has nowhere to go...
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Yes, and ends up on the ironing board!
0:16:25 > 0:16:27..and is useless. Yes. Yeah. Exactly.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31I don't even know what's under here, actually.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36Welcome to Phyllida Barlow's sculpture graveyard.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Her sculptures may fall apart, but they never really die.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43I don't know what's wrong with this, really.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46SHE LAUGHS
0:16:46 > 0:16:49They await reincarnation as new sculptures,
0:16:49 > 0:16:51or are left to weather.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58I'm curious about the interplay between
0:16:58 > 0:17:04the fancifulness of stage sets and the hardcore reality of sculpture,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07where the two have some kind of meeting.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12This was the... This is the system
0:17:12 > 0:17:15by which it would be hung off the gantry.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20Phyllida has made several boulder-like sculptures
0:17:20 > 0:17:22which hang from ceilings.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24One was called Hanging Monument.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27They playfully defy monument logic.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29They look as though they weigh tonnes,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32but it could be Styrofoam with cement make-up.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38I'm changing my mind about it the whole time, and eventually next year
0:17:38 > 0:17:42I think we'll bring it back into the studio and work on it again.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46Phyllida relates obviously very much to her own generation -
0:17:46 > 0:17:48you know, Gormley and Deacon and Cragg,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51the new British sculptors of the 1980s.
0:17:51 > 0:17:53Her roots, in some ways -
0:17:53 > 0:17:56it sounds odd now - are in surrealism,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00the idea of dissonance and bringing opposing things together.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14I didn't find the Duveen space intimidating at all!
0:18:18 > 0:18:20The determination was there.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27Phyllida Barlow's show at Tate Britain's Duveen Gallery in 2014
0:18:27 > 0:18:30was one of the most audacious installations
0:18:30 > 0:18:33that that prestigious gallery has ever encountered.
0:18:34 > 0:18:40It was a monumental shout with the most unmonumental of materials.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45It seemed to be having a laugh at the very idea of monumentality.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48Some of the works there looked as if they might collapse
0:18:48 > 0:18:51on top of me at any moment,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53but the overall impact was jaw-dropping.
0:18:57 > 0:19:04The idea of making things that have 100% stability, that don't break...
0:19:04 > 0:19:07- Fall down!- Yes, and are absolutely functional...
0:19:07 > 0:19:11- Yes.- ..is something that can be challenged
0:19:11 > 0:19:16by the way I make sculpture and the accidents that happen,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20and the fact that in some ways I encourage those accidents,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23- things do fall over. - Yes.- Things do break.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25- But I'm interested... - Do they for real?
0:19:25 > 0:19:27I mean, because they look as though they might,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29but then I thought how clever that actually they don't.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33- But have you had sculptures fall apart?- Yes! Oh, yes.
0:19:33 > 0:19:34- Yes.- Yes.- Yeah.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Adam Burge was the manager of the team
0:19:39 > 0:19:41that installed Phyllida's sculptures
0:19:41 > 0:19:43in the Duveen Gallery at Tate Britain.
0:19:44 > 0:19:50The look of the work presenting itself as being precarious
0:19:50 > 0:19:53is not the case.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Precarious it may look, but precarious it isn't.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01There are strict rules and regulations,
0:20:01 > 0:20:05so if something appears to be about to fall, it's not.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13For me, the Duveen show was the moment, because...
0:20:14 > 0:20:18- ..it's a wonderful space, isn't it?- Mm.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21And then you filled it so commandingly
0:20:21 > 0:20:26but also without changing your style, in a way.
0:20:26 > 0:20:31I mean, it was more Phyllida Barlow sort of falling over!
0:20:31 > 0:20:33- You know, toppling over.- Yes.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37And I... Well, for me, that was the moment where I thought,
0:20:37 > 0:20:40"Oh, God," you know, "she's a really, really great artist!"
0:20:40 > 0:20:44And... Sorry, I hadn't thought that before.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47- No, that's fine! - THEY LAUGH
0:20:47 > 0:20:50The Duveen show was more like a performance
0:20:50 > 0:20:52than a lasting sculpture.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56Most of its ingredients now await recycling.
0:20:56 > 0:21:03These are all the units that when they're put together vertically
0:21:03 > 0:21:06formed the posts or the lintels
0:21:06 > 0:21:08for the Tate Duveen show.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11There was a family of foxes somewhere in here!
0:21:12 > 0:21:16I'm not quite sure where she set up home.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21All this is fodder for future works.
0:21:23 > 0:21:29These are... A lot of the timbers that were used in the Duveen work
0:21:29 > 0:21:32are now being used for the Zurich work.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41The show will be on two floors.
0:21:41 > 0:21:47The lower floor consists of three large spaces,
0:21:47 > 0:21:53and I want the work to link between the three spaces.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02I mean, do you think that there are other, as it were, Phyllida Barlows
0:22:02 > 0:22:06- out there who do, you know, really good work?- God, yes.
0:22:06 > 0:22:12- But not being recognised? - I think my curiosity is that
0:22:12 > 0:22:18I work in a visual medium, yet most artwork is invisible.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21- It doesn't get seen. - Unless it's exhibited?
0:22:21 > 0:22:25Exactly. Yes, there are many artists
0:22:25 > 0:22:30who do not manage to get their work seen or...
0:22:30 > 0:22:33So in the end, is it all to do with grit?
0:22:33 > 0:22:37With being willing to keep on keeping on keeping on
0:22:37 > 0:22:41long enough, or do you think luck comes into it?
0:22:41 > 0:22:44Oh, luck, enormously. Yes. Yeah.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46Phyllida wasn't institutionalised
0:22:46 > 0:22:49in the way some of her male peers were,
0:22:49 > 0:22:54and that may be partly because of her gender,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57partly because of bringing up a family meant that
0:22:57 > 0:22:59she was slightly under the radar
0:22:59 > 0:23:02in terms of being on the scene and being present.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Partly perhaps because there's always been, I think,
0:23:05 > 0:23:07a prejudice against teaching,
0:23:07 > 0:23:10that teaching has never been seen as as important as making,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12and many of the artists who've made it
0:23:12 > 0:23:16have made it once they distanced themselves from teaching.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19It's institutional neglect.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21I think that if you're an artist,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25it's also your job to go out and interest people in it, or...
0:23:25 > 0:23:29not necessarily to sell it, but to engage the public.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34I mean, I like the shouty artists, the Tracey Emins, the Damien Hirsts.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38- Because actually...- And so do I. - Oh, do you?- Oh, yeah, no.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43I haven't got... I wouldn't want to be misrepresented about that.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47I haven't got a problem with any artist's position.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51I can accept the whole lot, because I think...
0:23:51 > 0:23:53But you're saying it's not your way?
0:23:53 > 0:23:57Well, I don't mind being a shouty artist,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00but it's not necessarily going to be heard,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02and that's what interests me.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05You know, is that you can...
0:24:07 > 0:24:12..you can want to your heart's desire to be seen
0:24:12 > 0:24:17and attain that kind of visible recognition,
0:24:17 > 0:24:19but it may not happen.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21The art world doesn't like to admit it,
0:24:21 > 0:24:25but it has waves of fashion,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28and it must be hard for artists...
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Obviously, you've developed, but basically you've kept on
0:24:31 > 0:24:35doing your thing through, as it were,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38- failure and success, or recognition. - Mm.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43And that probably is the right way to do art, isn't it?
0:24:43 > 0:24:44- It's- a- way.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49I mean, you know, being a young artist now,
0:24:49 > 0:24:52I think, is tougher than it's ever been before.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57Things have come full circle at the Slade School of Art for Phyllida.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00She was an art student at the Slade,
0:25:00 > 0:25:02was a long-time teacher at the Slade,
0:25:02 > 0:25:04and is now a source of inspiration
0:25:04 > 0:25:09for some of the young students having their graduating exhibition.
0:25:13 > 0:25:17They will soon be confronting the challenges and uncertainties
0:25:17 > 0:25:20of being an artist in the real world.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22Well, she came to do a talk last year,
0:25:22 > 0:25:26and I think that really got a lot of people talking.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29She talks about the sort of struggles as well as the...
0:25:29 > 0:25:32which people don't sometimes want to talk about,
0:25:32 > 0:25:35you know, how difficult it is to actually get the work there,
0:25:35 > 0:25:41or to install it or to realise what's in your head.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46The armature is polystyrene, and I know she does that a lot too,
0:25:46 > 0:25:48so maybe I've stolen a trick there!
0:25:48 > 0:25:50Pretty much anybody who makes things,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53I think she becomes an easy reference.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56Of course, people have this inkling, that you do hear of stories that
0:25:56 > 0:25:58people suddenly become this overnight success,
0:25:58 > 0:26:02but I think with people like Phyllida, the fact that it does take a long time,
0:26:02 > 0:26:04there's actually almost comfort in that,
0:26:04 > 0:26:05that you can spend your time with your work
0:26:05 > 0:26:08and take a longer time just kind of making the art,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11rather than worrying about having a level of commercial success.
0:26:11 > 0:26:17Now I think the emphasis is on how the work is seen,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20where and to whom, et cetera.
0:26:20 > 0:26:22And that's a tough call.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27- Yes.- There's no... It seems to be very unforgiving
0:26:27 > 0:26:32about the artist who goes under the radar because they need to.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34We may like shouty artists,
0:26:34 > 0:26:39but they also need their moments of...
0:26:39 > 0:26:43- you know, I think rest, or... - Yes.- ..reflection.
0:26:43 > 0:26:48I don't necessarily think just because a work's hit the gallery,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52- it's the best work. And I speak for myself...- Yes.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55..as... Or the worst work, you know.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57It's uncharted territory,
0:26:57 > 0:27:04- because in the end, there is very little way of judging it...- Yes.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07- ..in the way that will guarantee... - Yes.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10..that that judgment is right or wrong.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14Oh, that's really kind. Thanks. Thanks.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17I notice that you've got the complete correspondence
0:27:17 > 0:27:20of Charles Darwin, which I have read too.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23Mm, but your book should be there.
0:27:23 > 0:27:24Yes, it should!
0:27:25 > 0:27:28'By coincidence, around the time I met Phyllida,
0:27:28 > 0:27:31'I wrote a book called The Heyday Of Natural History,
0:27:31 > 0:27:34'which was about the Victorian obsession with natural history,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38'and in particular the impact of Charles Darwin.'
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Would you say that your great-great-grandfather,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Charles Darwin, has been an influence...or a presence, maybe,
0:27:48 > 0:27:53- is a better word, in your life? - A presence, yes, definitely.
0:27:53 > 0:27:59And my mother was very severe about how we as children
0:27:59 > 0:28:01might relate to him and that we shouldn't use it
0:28:01 > 0:28:06as some sort of leverage for our future ambitions.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08Where could you have done that?
0:28:08 > 0:28:14I suppose, maybe... in any circumstance, you know,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17it can be a kind of show-stopper.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21- You know.- Oh, really?- And she was very keen to put an embargo on that.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25You seem to have survived a lot of challenges.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Do you think being the great-great-granddaughter
0:28:28 > 0:28:30of Charles Darwin helped?
0:28:31 > 0:28:36I do think when I read the diaries that you saw earlier,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40there are letters that are extremely compelling.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43And I suppose there's something about
0:28:43 > 0:28:45his descriptions of family life
0:28:45 > 0:28:51and how those two things can come together and fall apart...
0:28:51 > 0:28:55- And suit you, as it were... - Or there's an empathy there.
0:28:56 > 0:29:01From very small humble things to great national museums,
0:29:01 > 0:29:03here's Phyllida, she can do it.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08My ambition is to make an unnameable thing.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15You've come a very long way from that wood shed in Finsbury Park
0:29:15 > 0:29:18- when I first saw... - Is that on my school report?
0:29:18 > 0:29:21Yes! THEY LAUGH