One of my favorite pavilions in Venice this year:

Karla Black, Scottish Paviilon  54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia,
The exhibition is curated by The Fruitmarket Gallery and is presented, as in 2009, at Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina) until 27 November 2011.
Karla Black is also one of the 2011 Turner Prize nominees.

Text from glasgowsculpturestudios.org

Glasgow Sculpture Studios are delighted that GSS Member Karla Black has a solo presentation at the 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, the world’s largest and most prestigious showcase for contemporary visual arts. The exhibition is curated by The Fruitmarket Gallery and is presented, as in 2009, at Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina) until 27 November 2011.

2011 Turner Prize nominee Karla Black presents an exhibition of new abstract sculptures that hover between energy and mass—pulverised, atomised, piled, layered, supported, suspended and spilling out onto the floor; a mass of colour and material that fills the 15th century Venetian Palazzo Pisani. These ‘almost objects’ have been intimately and painstakingly worked in situ by the artist into exquisitely detailed aesthetic forms. While not exactly site-specific, these works have been made with their physical and conceptual context in mind.

In this exhibition Black presents forms and compositions in Vaseline and marble dust, sugar paper and eye-shadow, soil, powder paint and plaster, polythene, cellophane and soap, in crumbling, peeling washes or dustings of high key mid-colours like peach, baby blue and pastel pink. Black describes these works as being ‘caught between thoughtless gestures and seriously obsessive attempts at beauty‘.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication, designed by Karla Black as part of her presentation in Venice. With images of the exhibition in the Palazzo Pisani, as well as other images of recent exhibitions, and a new essay by Briony Fer, the publication offers an experience of Karla Black’s work that is both parallel to the exhibition and illuminating of it.

This is 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.

For more information please visit http://www.scotlandandvenice.com/
‘Like’ Karla Black at Venice via http://www.facebook.com/scotlandandvenice and http://twitter.com/scotlandvenice/