Although the official start of this year's Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) is a month away, the Fruitmarket Gallery is getting in on the act early.
Its festival show is devoted to the work of Newcastle-born artist Phyllida Barlow, best known for her monumental sculptures made from simple inexpensive materials such as plywood, cardboard, fabric, plaster, paint and plastic.
Barlow has been a major influence on a younger generation of artists through her work and in her long teaching career at London art schools. At the Slade School of Fine Art, Barlow's students included Turner Prize-winning and nominated artists Rachel Whiteread and Angela de la Cruz.
With a career spanning six decades, Barlow's most recent high-profile commission was dock, made for the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain. This epic work challenged the architecture of the grand entrance to the galleries with large-scale yet curiously homely sculptures.
For Set at the Fruitmarket, Barlow's stated aim is to "turn the gallery upside down". She has made a new series of large sculptures which engulf the gallery, spilling from the upper gallery over the staircase and down onto the ground floor.
A new book, Phyllida Barlow: Sculpture 1963-2015, written by Frances Morris, Head of Collections and International Art at Tate, has also been produced to mark this exhibition. The publication will be launched next month and will include images of Barlow's installations at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Dallas's Nasher Sculpture Center in 2014, Tate Britain, Hauser & Wirth, the 55th Venice Biennale and the 2013 Carnegie International.
Phyllida Barlow: Set, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (0131 225 2383, www.fruitmarket.co.uk) until October 18
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