Spin Events
Karla Black
Karla Black, Installation view, Perrier Jouet Prize, London 2008 (c) Courtesy of the artist
Mary Mary, Glasgow
21 January 2009, 6.30-7.30pm
A discussion of Karla Black’s solo exhibition at Mary Mary with Spin host Alhena Katsof and gallerist Hannah Robinson.
Karla Black describes her works as, ‘almost painting, performance or installation while actually, and quite definitely, being sculpture.’ Her fragile, yet authoritative, sculptures are caught between thoughtless gesture and an obsessive attempt at beauty. They are both compromises and protests at the same time. Black’s works seem to have been made by themselves and then hover unsupported in the ether: pure raw material, colour and sensation. For her first solo exhibition at Mary Mary since 2006, Black will spend six days working on-site to produce a group of sculptures made from materials such as body moisturising creams, chalk dust, cotton wool, sellotape, vaseline, paint and egg shells.
Karla Black was born in Alexandria, Scotland in 1972. She currently lives and works in Glasgow where she completed an MFA in 2004, a Master of Philosophy in 2000 and a BA (Hons) Fine Art in 1999, all at the Glasgow School of Art. Karla has exhibited extensively throughout Scotland, the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions include solos at West London Projects, London; Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and group exhibitions Wollust-the presence of absence, Columbus Art Foundation, Leipzig; Strange Solution, Art Now, Tate Britain, London (all 2008). Forthcoming projects include solo exhibitions at Migros Museum, Zurich; Modern Art Oxford and Inverleith House, Edinburgh and group shows at Kunstverein Freiburg and Kunsthalle Andratz (all 2009).