Phyllida Barlow, Tate Britain Commission 2014

Following its flashy, marbled revamp in November 2013, this Spring Tate Britain turns over its Duveen Galleries to sculptor Phyllida Barlow for this year’s Tate Britain Commission. 
The commission – now a yearly fixture in the Tate calendar - is designed to conjure contemporary responses to the gallery’s extensive collection. The Duveen, the long hall the heart of the venue, acts as an artery pumping this contemporary edge into the Establishment capitol, highlighting (in Tate’s words) ‘a continuum of visual and intellectual ideas’ between the art of the past and that of today. 
Whether or not this means much for the final work, artists have responded to the space very enthusiastically in the past. Suffice to say, the Commission tends toward the cutting edge, and has seen Mark Wallinger (2007), Martin Creed (2008), Patrick Keiller (2012) and Simon Starling (2013) all rise to produce custom installations in recent years. 
Starling’s Phantom Ride commission was one of the highlights of last year’s exhibition calendar, conjuring cinematic vision of the Tate’s past and future that broadsheet reviewers all but unanimously called exhilarating. 
Phyllida Barlow- a Royal Academian and Emeritus Professor at the Slade School of Fine Art - is eminently recognisable for her large-scale collages of ephemera from cardboard, rock, timber and wire. One of her best known works, later... - featuring gigantic painted balls of sand and cement that looked like volcanic extrusions – went on display at the 55th Venice Biennale last year, while her most recent work TIP – a nest of timber and multi-coloured ribbons – recently graced the exterior of the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. 
Following her Venice exhibition and a wonderful joint show at the Serpentine in 2010, this is Barlow’s largest commission to date. The precise look of Barlow’s effort will remain a mystery until a grand unveiling on 31 March, but on the basis of her previous work, this will be a piece on an enormous scale, inviting 3D interaction from its viewers.