Ceramics are at the heart of Julia Phillips' interdisciplinary work. She combines partial impressions of her body with other objects to create sometimes surreal metaphors about humans in relation to the environment and society they have created. Through the human body, the artist also explores human psychology and biological processes in the context of medical progress. Julia Phillips: Inside, Before They Speak, the artist's first institutional solo exhibition in the United Kingdom, runs from January 30 to April 19 at the Barbican Centre in London and presents numerous newly created works.
Julia Phillips (*1985), originally from Hamburg, is a German-American artist who lives and works in Berlin and Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at venues including the Kunstverein Braunschweig and MoMA PS1 in New York City. In 2022, she also realized her first public commission, Observer, Observed, for The High Line in New York City and participated in the main exhibition The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale.
The current exhibition is one of two shows with which the Barbican Centre is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its art program The Curve. Each year, two artists are invited to create new site-specific works of art for the Curve Gallery, a 90-meter-long curved corridor surrounding the Barbican's concert hall. Following Julia Phillips' exhibition, Japanese artist Yuko Mohri will take over the space from October 1, 2026.
