British Artist Phyllida Barlow Receives Top Kiev Biennale Award

The prizes have been awarded to mark the close of the first Kiev biennale. It is now known that the British Artist, Phyllida Barlow has received the award for The Most Significant Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Art. Her work ‘Rift’ is a new three-part site-specific work with hoardings, industrial elements and “bombs”.  It interacts with the massive columns, vaults and military history of the imposing Arsenal building in Kiev.

Mykola Malyshko and Andriy Sagaidakovsky received the strangely named award for the most significant discovery. The audience choice award is shared by Yayoi Kusama, Chiharu Shiota and Song Dong, all established older artists. The Biennale had over 135,000 visitors attend, making it a successful addition to the international circut.

Phyllida Barlow was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art and was Professor of Fine Art at the Slade. Her work incorporates an enormous range of mass produced materials including cardboard, fabric, paper, glue, paint, plastic, wood, rubber, hardboard, and adhesive tape. Barlow’s work questions the nature and role of the sculptural object in contemporary culture, utilising an extensive, fluid vocabulary and immense enthusiasm for engaging with the physical ‘stuff’ of the world. She creates new relationships, experimenting with unexpected combinations of materials creating objects and environments, which encourage us to see the everyday world with fresh eyes.

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