Athan Coley

In May 2004 The Fruitmarket Gallery presents a mid-career survey of the work of Nathan Coley, an artist who examines how the values of a society are reflected in and determined by the buildings it builds. A Scottish artist with a well-established international reputation, Coley has taken part in a number of important group exhibitions, including Days Like These (Tate Britain, 2003), Here + Now (DCA, 2001), and has become well known for his public projects including Show Home (Locus Plus, North Shields and Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2003), Black Tent, (Portsmouth Cathedral, Old Portsmouth), The Black Maria, (Scape: Art & Industry Urban Biennial, Christchurch, New Zealand) and Urban Sanctuary (Stills, Edinburgh 1997).

This is Nathan Coley’s first major solo exhibition in Scotland, and concentrates on work that brings the built environment into the gallery. With sculpture, photography, drawing, video and installation, made in and about Scotland and further afield, the exhibition offers the first opportunity to experience the full range of Coley’s work.

Lamp of Sacrifice, 300 Places of Worship, Edinburgh (2004) has been commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery for the exhibition. This project involves the artist making cardboard models of the 300 places of worship of all denominations listed in Edinburgh’s Yellow Pages. The artist begins the task in January 2004 and completes it – he hopes – in time for all 300 to be displayed in The Fruitmarket Gallery by the end of the exhibition in July. A personal sacrifice of both time and effort, the work is inspired by the 19th century artist and academic, John Ruskin, who distinguished buildings as being either purely functional or imbued with meaning through personal sacrifice: ‘It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration, not the gift but the giving’ (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Ruskin, 1848).

Lockerbie (2003) arose from Coley’s stint as unofficial artist in residence at Kamp Ziest in the Netherlands, the Scottish Court established in 2000 to try the two Libyan former Intelligence Agents charged with the bombing of flight PAN AM 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The work consists of a precise replica of the witness box, together with drawings of evidence presented during the trial. Coley’s intervention has led to the original witness box being acquired by the Imperial War Museum in London, for its Weapons and Firearms Collection. Nathan Coley fabricates physical and emotional triggers for urban experience. His work is sometimes beautiful, as in The Fourteen Churches of Münster (2000) – a film in which a circling helicopter takes a ‘God’s eye view’ of ecclesiastical landmarks in the German town. It is sometimes disturbing, as in Hurt / Burn Me Daddy (2001), a work in which found graffiti is used to explore the ways in which abandoned and misused buildings can become threatening places. His work is sometimes baffling - one of the prints in A Public Announcement (1999) commands the viewer to ‘Turn back, you are going the wrong way’. The work can also take a humorous view of society as in Pigeon Lofts (1997), a mock serious slide lecture. With an audio commentary in the tone of an Estate Agent’s sales pitch, it presents the viewer with images of the ad-hoc structures which city dwellers build to house their pigeons.

The exhibition will be supported by a substantial publication documenting the work in the exhibition as well as Nathan Coley’s major public projects. With an essay by Susanne Gaensheimer, curator of the Lenbachhaus in Munich, and images and compilations of texts on each of the artist’s major works, the book will offer the opportunity for comprehensive assessment of the work of this fascinating artist.

This exhibition and publication provide a definitive survey of Nathan Coley’s work to date, and take place at a pivotal point in the artist’s career. Showing new work in the context of a mid-career survey and major publication, the project builds on the success of the Gallery’s now completed Visions for the Future series of exhibitions, in each of which two Scottish artists were invited to make new work and a publication for the Gallery. Pressetext

Athan Coley