Phyllida Barlow

Since the 1960s, British sculptor Phyllida Barlow (born 1944) has pursued a unique investigation into materiality, form and process in the wake of the minimalist and postminimalist movements of the 1960s and 70s. Barlow's 2013 exhibition Scree, at the Des Moines Art Center, was designed specifically for the museum, responding to and residing within the architecture of its I.M. Pei wing. Built in 1968, this classically Brutalist architecture with its poured concrete structure and expansive windows forms the perfect backdrop to the artist's ongoing development of the minimalist legacy. Scree also includes 55 works on paper from the late 1960s to the present, which are juxtaposed with works she has selected from the Des Moines Art Center's Permanent Collections. These include works by artists who have been central to her artistic development such as Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, Magdalena Abakanowicz, John Chamberlain and Eva Hesse.