Scotland + Venice Announces Karla Black to Represent Scotland at 54th Venice Biennale

EDINBURGH.- Scotland + Venice announced that 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.

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.”

Karla Black (b. 1972) lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work has been shown in major museum and commercial gallery exhibitions in the UK and abroad. She is represented by Mary Mary, Glasgow and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and her work is held in museum collections including Tate, London; migros museum für gegenwartskunst Zürich; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Arts Council Collection, England.

Forthcoming exhibitions include: Karla Black, Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2010); British Art Show 7, various UK venues (2010 – 11); Watercolour, Tate Britain, London; Essential Art, Collezione Maramotti, Italy (both 2011).

Recent solo exhibitions include: Ten Sculptures, Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2010); Karla Black: Sculptures with paintings by Bet Low (1924-2007), Inverleith House, Edinburgh; Modern Art Oxford; Migros Museum, Zurich; Kunstverein Hamburg (with Kostis Velonis & Karen Sargsyan); Mary Mary, Glasgow (all 2009).

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