One of Ms Barlow’s previous works [Stu Smith] – we have been stopped from showing you what is planned for Highgate Cemetery 

PLANS for a six-metre-tall sculpture in Highgate Cemetery have been shrouded in secrecy after the artist’s gallery told the New Journal we would not be able to publish details of the proposed exhibit.

Papers lodged with the Town Hall set out the work by British artist Phyllida Barlow CBE and show a grey mausoleum-style plinth and frontage with a red door.

The piece consists of timber poles, along with plywood sheets rendered with flecked cement.

If approved by planners, it will be placed in the courtyard of the West Cemetery from July 17 to August 29, being on display to the public visiting the historic burial ground.

Yet despite an application that praised its benefits to the public and community, Studio Voltaire – the not-for-profit art organisation behind it – refused to give permission for images to appear in the New Journal.

Despite this stance, they can be freely seen on Camden Council’s website and the planning application (ref 2021/ 1943/P) is open for residents to comment, with its location at a site of huge historic and public interest.

Highgate Cemetery

In the proposal, it says the installation, Stack, is a “contemplative response to the funerary architecture of the site, and is sympathetic to the cemetery as a site of reflection and public interest”.

The project is supported by the Friends of Highgate Cemetery group. Ms Barlow was made a member of the Royal Academy in 2011.

Her work Dock was exhibited at the Tate Britain in 2014 and she represented the UK at the Venice Biennale in 2017.

The 77-year-old taught at the Slade School of Art for 40 years until 2009.

The plans say that visitors won’t be allowed to “interact with the sculpture”, as well as usual restrictions on climbing or walking over it.

In its application to the Town Hall, Studio Voltaire said: “The exhibition is an important opportunity to provide audiences with extraordinary encounters with art and culture in the public realm.”

Studio Voltaire and cemetery chief executive Ian Dungavell declined to comment.