1 April 2011 — Announcement

Fiona Bradley on Karla Black

This is a recording of Fiona Bradley, Director of The Fruitmarket Gallery talking about artist Karla Black’s work in the context of Scotland + Venice.

Karla Black has been chosen to represent Scotland at the 54th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the world’s largest and most prestigious showcase for contemporary visual arts. The exhibition will be curated by The Fruitmarket Gallery and will, as in 2009, be presented at Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina), Venice, from 4 June – 27 November 2011.

Karla Black makes sculpture which she has described as “actual physical explorations into thinking, feeling, communicating and relating; parts of an ongoing search for understanding, through a material experience that has been prioritised over language”. She works most frequently with loose materials – plaster, chalk dust, pigment, soil, sawdust – and with materials familiar from life outside art – medicines, make-up, household cleaners, packaging and toiletries – though she often combines these with more structural elements such as glass, wood and cardboard. While not exactly site-specific, her work is made with its physical and conceptual context in mind.

This will be the fifth presentation from Scotland + Venice, a partnership between Creative Scotland, British Council Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland. It builds on the critical success of previous projects which have featured artists including Turner Prize winner Simon Starling and Turner Prize nominees Cathy Wilkes, Jim Lambie and Lucy Skaer, and last year presented the first solo exhibition for Scotland at the Venice Biennale with the work of Martin Boyce.