On Collections: Phyllida Barlow on Bethan Huws

We invited Phyllida Barlow, whose work is featured in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, to choose a piece from the collection as the starting point for a conversation about influences and objects of interest. She chose Bethan Huws’ Untitled, 2002.

Untitled is from Huws' Word Vitrine series and is a text-based work of sculptural form, using standard office word vitrines made from aluminium, glass, rubber and plastic letters. First created in 1999, her Word Vitrines reference Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, though they alter this concept with the addition of an evocative text.

Phyllida Barlow describes her first encounter with the work of Bethan Huws being at the Royal College of Art degree show in 1988. and how, ever since then, it has had an impact on her own approach to sculpture.

Barlow discusses that what drew her to Huws' work is the sentience she imbues in her sculptures. She joins Ned McConnell from her London home for a conversation about memory, the ‘performativity’ of sculpture and the difference between someone and something.