Gagosian Paris features a new exhibition grouping works by Phyllida Barlow, Rachel Whiteread, and Alison Wilding. Hurly-burly realizes the artists’ long-standing desire to collaborate on an exhibition. The exhibition is on view until 4th March.

Wilding combines a wide variety of techniques and forms to produce eclectic abstract sculptures centered on material contrast, concealment, and disparity. She rejects any traditional hierarchy of materials, whether industrial or organic, reclaimed or repurposed, and her selection frequently arises from what is available to her at any given time. X (2018) is an elegant segmented double curl of patinated brass that resembles a shell or spiral staircase, while the spiked top of the copper tube in Pointing (2021) transforms it into an extended archetypal crown, rising from a hexagram-shaped azobé base.

Hurly-burly features several works by each artist, providing viewers with a rare opportunity to compare their diverse but interconnected approaches. It is presented not as a conversation between the works themselves, but rather as a record of an ongoing exchange between the personalities and visions behind them. None of the artists saw or discussed what the others were making during the run-up to the exhibition.

The exhibition’s title makes playful reference to another famous alliance, in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It also alludes to the ever-changing character of the art world that Barlow, Whiteread, and Wilding have observed and participated in over the course of their careers. Wilding first met Barlow in London in 1969 when the latter was teaching at Chelsea College of Art, and both met Whiteread in 1982 at Brighton Polytechnic, where they were her tutors. Barlow and Wilding left Brighton to teach at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, and Whiteread followed them there to study sculpture and worked as an assistant to both. The three have remained friends throughout the forty years since.