Skip to main content

Karla Black – sculptures (2001-2021) details for a retrospective

Fruit market Gallery, Edinburgh, July 7th-October 24th2021 

 Karla Black has been mining for gold for more than two decades now. Over that time, the accrued objects of her sculptural desires have often looked like they’ve been put together with stuff gathered from the mess of a playpen and transformed into retro-future relics occupying an adventure playground of the imagination. A decade on from Black’s Fruitmarket Gallery curated Venice Biennale show - the same year she was nominated for the Turner Prize - where better for Black to run riot some more than the former fruit and veg storeroom turned nightclub that makes up the Edinburgh gallery’s newly expanded space now christened The Warehouse.

 

The Fruitmarket’s existing galleries here house an array of Black’s older confections. Upstairs, almost the entire floor has become a pink powdered planet, with reels of cotton linking the threads that line its surface or else left dangling in a new iteration of Punctuation is pretty popular: nobody wants to admit to much (2008/2021). 

 

Downstairs, scrunched up brown paper and cellophane constructions held together (probably) with sticky-backed plastic hang in mid-air like makeshift hammocks on a desert island after a storm, or surprise birthday decorations of diplomatically indeterminate age. The party continues by way of smeared make-up bag reflections and what looks like Jenga played with slices of wedding cake that threaten to topple any second into the rouge-laden boudoir it’s been left inside. 

 

The best game of all is the surprise mystery tour along the corridor to the much darker Warehouse. Stripped back from its former fun palace finery to bare brick and steel, in the shadows, a small mountain of earth sits dappled with gold and copper leaf. From a distance, it looks like a tent draped in Christmas tree lights after dark. On the ground, the earth is patterned in a way that resembles cartoon tunnels with pictorial shapes made from the dirt  marking out fresh territory.

 

While nothing is actually dug up, the effect of this new work Black styles as Waiver For Shade (2021) is part architectural, part archaeological, as it gives a sparkly-attired nod to what was here before, while simultaneously setting down foundations for a bright new future beyond. Three new wall-based works reiterate the child’s play of all this with their smudges of paint and eye shadow that seep out too onto the windows. Rather than treating the space with kid gloves, then, Waiver For Shade makes itself comfy and gets stuck in, never mind the mess. As it comes blinking into the light, it sets the tone for the shapes of things to come. 

 

Scottish Art News, July 2021
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
1 comment
Read more

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Elliot The Musical

Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...
Post a Comment
Read more