Karla Black: Sculptures (2001 to 2021)

About

The renovation and expansion offers Karla Black inspirational, materially resonant spaces in which to make and site her work. Inspired by the interplay of the new, double height warehouse with its raw brick and rough wood, and the refurbished conventionality of the exhibition galleries, she is working with the Fruitmarket to reimagine what a retrospective exhibition can be. A selection of sculpture made since 2000 will fill the ground floor galleries with standing,  hanging and low-lying volumes and planes. They are constructed from and worked on with  Black’s signature materials – cardboard, sugar paper, polystyrene, polythene, cellophane,  sellotape, glass, mirror, net, vaseline, plaster powder, powder paint, medicines, cosmetics and  thread. 

These sculptures articulate and embody the freedom Black demands in and for her art. With  their materials kept as near as possible in their raw state (plaster power and powder paint  rather than these same materials mixed, set and dried), even though they were made in some  cases quite long ago now, they are not relics of past practice but objects making meaning here  and now. 

These works will set the stage for two major new commissions, made by Karla Black in the  upstairs gallery and the new warehouse space in the weeks before the exhibition opens.  Creative freedom in action, these new works will embody the trust the Fruitmarket places in the  artist and the artist places in her materials and her process.