Scottish Pavilion

Karla Black

Scotland + Venice 2011 At the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale

4 June – 27 November 2011
Vernissage: 1-2-3 June

Palazzo Pisani
Calle de le Erbe
Cannaregio (off Campo Santa Marina) 6103
Venice Italy

http://www.scotlandandvenice.com

Scotland + Venice is delighted to announce further details of Karla Black's presentation 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). Karla Black will present a solo exhibition of new abstract sculptures that hover between energy and mass - pulverised, atomised, piled, layered, supported, suspended and spilling out onto the floor. This mass of colour and material will fill the 15th century Venetian Palazzo Pisani. These ‘almost objects' will be intimately and painstakingly worked in situ by the artist into exquisitely detailed aesthetic forms. Karla Black prioritises material experience over language as a way to learn about and understand the world. She works most frequently with powders, pastes, oils, creams and gels, her sculptures offering a sense of visceral absorption in the material world. In Venice she will use Vaseline and marble dust, sugar paper and eye shadow, soil, powder paint and plaster, polythene, cellophane and soap in a sequence of new sculptures which she describes as being “caught between thoughtless gestures and seriously obsessive attempts at beauty”.

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.

On 29 March exhibition curator Fiona Bradley will give a free lunchtime talk at the National Galleries of Scotland (Weston Link) about the artist's work in the context of Scotland + Venice.

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive, Creative Scotland said:
“The Scotland + Venice partners look forward to presenting the work of Karla Black, one of Scotland's most remarkable artists. Drawing on the curatorial expertise of The Fruitmarket Gallery we aim to build on Scotland's growing reputation as a centre of excellence in the visual arts.” Fiona Bradley, Director, The Fruitmarket Gallery said: “The Fruitmarket Gallery is delighted to have been selected to curate Scotland + Venice 2011, and to be working with Karla Black. Karla is one of Scotland's most interesting artists, whose beautiful, thoughtful and visceral sculpture has already made an impact internationally and in Scotland. This solo presentation of her work at the Venice Biennale underlines The Fruitmarket Gallery's commitment to presenting the work of Scottish artists on an international stage, both in Edinburgh and abroad.”