Sculpting Lives

By: Jo Baring and Sarah Turner
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  • Summary

  • Sculpting Lives is a podcast series written and presented by Jo Baring (https://www.jobaring.com/about) (Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art) and Sarah Victoria Turner (https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/about/people/sarah-victoria-turner) (Deputy Director at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London). Dame Barbara Hepworth, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Kim Lim, Phyllida Barlow and Rana Begum – some of the most globally well-known British artists are women sculptors. Conversely, the profession and practice of sculpture was seen by many throughout the twentieth century (and before) to be very much a man’s world. Often using heavy and hard materials, sculpture was not typically viewed as suitable for women artists. Series one explores the lives and careers of these five women who worked (and are still working) against these preconceptions, forging successful careers and contributing in groundbreaking ways to the histories of sculpture and art. Series two features episodes on Dora Gordine, Gertrude Hermes, Veronica Ryan, Alison Wilding and Cathie Pilkington. At a moment when public sculpture is the subject of contentious debate, the final episode of the second series focuses on questions of gender, public sculpture and display, and explores women’s representation – both as subjects and artists – in our public spaces and exhibitions. Each episode is recorded in places that are significant for the women sculptors featured – their studios, as well as galleries and public places where their work is on display – and includes new interviews with curators, friends, family and the artists themselves, creating intimate soundscapes of their private and public worlds. The @SculptingLives Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sculptinglives) feed contains more information about the podcast and the artists and artworks featured in it. Written and hosted by: Jo Baring and Sarah Turner Produced by: Clare Lynch Research by: Isabelle Mooney (Series One) & Chloe Nahum (Series Two) Music by: Pauline Oliveros, [Silence] (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Pauline_Oliveros/EASY_NOT_EASY_Festival_Oct_8_2010/Silence_1082010) Visual identity by: Vanessa Fowler-Kendall This podcast has been made possible through support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. We are also extremely grateful to Art UK (https://artuk.org/) and National Life Stories: Artists' Lives (British Library) (https://www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories-artists-lives) .
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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Episodes
  • S2 Ep6: Sculpting Lives: Making Sculpture Public

    S2 Ep6: Sculpting Lives: Making Sculpture Public
    Dec 6 2021
    Over the last year public sculpture has become a hugely controversial issue. No longer passive objects that we simply walk past on our streets, public sculptures are part of a vigorous debate about contemporary society – who is commemorated and represented, and why. In this episode we delve further into this subject, interviewing the people associated with our most recent sculpture commissions of and by women, speaking to critics and researchers who are reflecting on the historical dimensions of this contemporary moment, and the contemporary sculptors who are making objects that occupy our streets and squares. Jo and Sarah also visit the Breaking the Mould Exhibition: Sculpture by Women Since 1945, organised by the Arts Council Collection, to talk to the curator and some of the artists involved in this landmark display. Together, they discuss the relevance of the public display and exhibition of the histories of women working with sculpture and broader questions about gender and representation in the art world and public sphere in 2021 .

    Contributors: 

    • Hettie Judah, Art Critic and WriterNatalie Rudd, Senior Curator, Arts Council Collection
    • Kate MacMillan, King’s College, London
    • Bee Rowlatt, Chairwoman of the Mary on the Green campaign
    • Natalie Rudd, PhD Researcher and formerly Senior Curator, Arts Council Collection
    • Bianca Chu, Kim Lim Estate
    • Holly Hendry, Artist
    • Katie Cuddon, Artist
    • Permindar Kaur, Artist
    • Rosanne Robertson, Artist

    Digital image: Maggi Hambling, Statue for Mary Wollstonecraft, 2020. Photography: Sarah Victoria Turner
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • S2 Ep5: Sculpting Lives: Cathie Pilkington

    S2 Ep5: Sculpting Lives: Cathie Pilkington
    Nov 30 2021
    'The thing about my work is that there is a tension between a passionate love and engagement with the traditions of the past and a complete impatience with their irrelevance and it’s trying to hold those things in tension and trying to engage people in the complexities of that.' Cathie Pilkington, R.A.

    Cathie Pilkington creates surreal, uncanny and ambivalent forms which are designed to unsettle and provoke. She employs a deliberate lack of hierarchy in her materials, using textiles and found objects alongside more traditional sculptural practices. Her work is often presented as an immersive installation, bringing themes of the domestic and everyday life into the language of sculpture.

    During our interviews with Cathie Pilkington in the Royal Academy, her studio and a sculpture foundry, we discuss the barriers to women pursuing careers as sculptors, how sculpture can remain relevant and how an artist can make figurative sculpture that speaks to contemporary audiences. We met her at a pivotal point in her career, taking increasing control and asking questions about the future of sculpture. Pilkington (who was the first female Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools) is Keeper at the Royal Academy and uses her role to ask questions about the history of sculpture and women at an institutional level.

    Contributors:
    • Cathie Pilkington, R.A.
    • Simon Martin, Director, Pallant House Gallery
    • Chloe Hughes, Foundry Manager, A.B. Foundry
    • Anna McNay, writer and curator

    Image: Portrait of Cathie Pilkington in the RA Keeper’s Studio, Digital image courtesy of Hayley Benoit
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    35 mins
  • S2 Ep4: Sculpting Lives: Alison Wilding

    S2 Ep4: Sculpting Lives: Alison Wilding
    Nov 23 2021
    Alison Wilding emerged into the art world in the 1980s making powerful sculptural statements out of a myriad of materials. Taking sculpture out of the museum and off the plinth, Wilding’s work is some of the most enigmatic and beguiling sculpture being produced, and in a candid interview in her studio we ask her about influences, materials and her experiences of art school. We also speak to art historians and commercial galleries to get different perspectives on the Turner Prize nominated sculptor. Taking to the art historian Jo Applin about where Wilding 'fits' within the histories of sculpture, she observed: 'You can always search for peer group comparisons or historical, where she might fit in a longer historical trajectory but there's something utterly idiosyncratic to the way in which she thinks in abstract terms that is, for me, one of the most rewarding things about her work.'

    With contributions from:
    • Alison Wilding, R.A.
    • Jo Applin, Courtauld Institute of Art
    • Tom Rowland, Karsten Schubert
    • Madeleine Bessborough, New Art Centre
    • Jessica Smith, New Art Centre

    Image: Alison Wilding, courtesy of Karsten Schubert, London.
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    31 mins

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