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ctureClaire Barclay Becky Beasley Karla Black & mat

terialAn Arts Council Collection exhibition curated by Katrina Brown and Caroline Douglas Karla Black Persuader Face 2011. Photo: Jonty Wilde Structure & Material Foreword

The exhibition Structure & Material represents tapestry, hardwood, steel and leather, as well can oscillate between a quite cerebral the culmination of a long held ambition, to as materials that more radically challenge consideration of the relationship between the bring together work by three artists whose our preconceptions of what sculpture can be: sculptural object and its photographic image, practice I have followed and admired for polythene, plaster dust and cosmetics. It is and the production of semi-autobiographical a number of years. It has been a pleasure significant that the work of all three artists work, literally made on the measure of her to work towards this with Katrina Brown, deals emphatically in the made object, as father’s arm span. Claire Barclay combines Director of The Common Guild, and Natalie opposed to the found object, recalling Carl lustrous, precision-machined metal Rudd, and to share our conviction about Andre’s assertion ‘my materials have yet to elements, with forms derived from textiles the distinction and importance of the work reach their cultural destiny’. and millinery, bringing together techniques with Helen Legg at Spike Island in Bristol that reference the functional and industrial, and Deborah Robinson and Stephen Snoddy It is not coincidental that the exhibition is with sensual materials and methods more at The New Art Gallery Walsall, where this presented at Longside Gallery, Yorkshire readily associated with the decorative and exhibition will be shown after its debut in Sculpture Park, just weeks before the the body. What results here is a tension Yorkshire. In presenting the works of Claire opening of The Hepworth Wakefield. between function and dysfunction, alienating Barclay, Becky Beasley and Karla Black Barbara Hepworth side-stepped questions coolness and the attraction of softness, we make no claims as to shared concerns of gender throughout her career, but she which creates a psychological unease around or motivations, but instead hope simply is nevertheless an unavoidably significant the work. to enable greater understanding of their figure for any female artist working in Britain meaning by bringing them into proximity with today. Within Structure & Material gender I would like to extend our sincerest thanks each other. as an issue is there, and not there. Claire to the artists’ gallerists, with particular Barclay, Becky Beasley and Karla Black thanks to Laura Bartlett of Laura Bartlett In beginning her essay, Katrina Brown evokes have distinctly evolved individual practices Gallery, Wim Peeters of Office Baroque, the image of ‘dancing about architecture’ that focus on an acute interrogation of the David Hubbard of Stephen Friedman Gallery, to illustrate the notion of translating one business of object-making, on the creation of Dorothee Sorge of Galerie Gisela Capitain art form into another. The dance analogy meaning through structures and materials. and Susanna Beaumont of Doggerfisher, for is particularly resonant here: the figures of Engaged with perhaps the most male- their tremendous support of the exhibition. the works in Structure & Material stand in identified of all media, the sculpture of these My thanks also go to Ruth Gooding at space as compelling, and yet as unfamiliar three artists tacitly acknowledges a history Longside for her meticulous preparation in their physical vocabulary as dancers in that encompasses the iconic minimalism and organisation of the show. It has been a the most progressive choreography. There of Carl Andre and Sol Lewitt, as well as the joy to find in Katrina Brown a collaborator are constructed objects, unique prints radical, soft sculpture of Claes Oldenburg or who feels as strongly as I do about the works and photographs and three works made early Barry Flanagan. presented here, and we both extend our specifically in response to the gallery space heartfelt thanks to the three artists who, in a and the landscape of Yorkshire Sculpture In my first encounters with the work of Karla year when they are all so intensely in demand, Park, which is always so powerful a presence Black, her aesthetic was described with help have given so much time and consideration to in any exhibition here. of a quote from the artist: that she wanted this exhibition. the work to look as if it were on the brink of The viewer is forced to look hard, to discern falling over, teetering on the edge of failure. Caroline Douglas the recognisable elements, the references to Black’s use of cosmetics and toiletries is , February 2011 traditional forms, and then look again in order provocatively radical, and yet her work to understand the way they are re-purposed. deals in an abstraction as fully rooted in an Within this exhibition are materials commonly apprehension of the body as any form created associated with interior design, such as by Hepworth herself. Becky Beasley’s work Structure & Material Katrina brown

‘Why is everything so beautiful now … exhibition is a vibrant and constant force in the way this thing is lying on this, and the work of Claire Barclay, not least in the the way that is like that. Why do I feel interplay between function and decoration I am standing up straight ...’ 1 in her sculptural installations. Barclay regularly uses what might be considered Writing about art is, as someone once put it, purely decorative materials or techniques like dancing about architecture: applying one to create structures that bear smaller means of expression to another perhaps adds objects. Her interest in the very nature of something to the experience, but it can offer ‘display’ has led to an increasing integration no ‘explanation’. This is never truer than when of various methods of support into the fabric the art in question is an art that begs to be of her sculptures: there are no plinths, no experienced rather than interpreted or ‘read’. shelves, no cases. Her sculptures are often, as here, punctuated by small, usually hand- Such is the case with Structure & Material, an sized metal components – spikes, cones – exhibition that looks at three very distinctive strikingly hard-edged and machine-made. approaches to how objects make meaning. Discussions of the work by all three artists The sculptural works by Barclay include regularly circulate around an interest in prominent structural elements – the our experience over information. Despite steel frame of Quick Slow (2010), the dark their occasional literary starting points and wooden ‘floors’ and uprights of Flat Peach references, Becky Beasley’s photographic and Soft Group (both 2010)- which function works and sculptures are often described simultaneously as support mechanisms for Claire Barclay Flat Peach I 2010. Photography courtesy Stephen White as ‘mute’; Karla Black talks of her work as the smaller objects within and as evocations being ‘very anti-language’ and of her desire of the fundamental matter of human to ‘prioritise material experience over construction, of designed environments. language’; while Claire Barclay regularly cites She has previously made works that allude intuition and the innate responses at play in to basic habitations – tents, for example, the process of making her work. This would or dens – places offering minimal shelter suggest that all that can be said, all that and protection to the human body, but here any text such as this can do, is encourage the structures are more suggestive of the the viewer to embark on an exploration of elaboration of the interior. the work that accepts an instinctive and intuitive response to the materials and At Longside Gallery, the first venue for the forms presented. We should perhaps rely exhibition, Barclay’s direct intervention in on what artist Ann Hamilton refers to as ‘the the space through the manual application wisdom of the body’. There are, nonetheless, of mirror paint to the large glass windows some words to be written about how this art lends a substance more normally found in comes to take its place before us, how these austere, pristine corporate environments a structures and materials come together and more expressive, even home-spun character. why they might hold our attention. In taking what is usually considered an architectural element like mirrored glass and The quest for open-endedness and manipulating it in this way, Barclay literally ambiguity that runs through the works in this gets her hands on the material and treats it Claire Barclay Soft Group 2010. Photography courtesy Stephen White Structure & Material Katrina brown

fluidly and instinctively. She creates in and from the work with which we are ultimately for the space a work that in part highlights confronted. Often minimal and monochrome the external landscape and in part obscures and apparently devoid of human presence, it. The reflections return us to ourselves, and Beasley’s works nonetheless deploy with the internal space of the gallery and the significant recall to familiar proportions, a works in it, create a kind of focal push-pull: combination that befits an artist who has perhaps the most succinct articulation of the said that she aims for her work to be ‘very schism between nature and culture that is so mental and very physical’. often to be found running through her work. Like Barclay, Beasley enjoys the contrast Barclay’s tackling of mirror paint in this way between soft and hard elements in her work, is entirely in keeping with her habitually as evidenced by several of the photographic hands-on approach to making. She has said works here. We find hard structures covered she believes ‘that we mustn’t lose touch with by soft, pliable fabric, an approach first understanding the world through making found in Covering (1) (Athens Archive) (2004- and knowing how things come about. We 07), but also in the Curtain works (Curtains shouldn’t take the production of objects I – III, (2009)) and three of the photographs for granted.’ 2 One consequence of this exhibited here – Infirme, Hideand Stool, Towel way of thinking is that Barclay has entirely – which are from a series of works entitled eschewed the use of readymade objects, ‘Surface Coverings / The Feral Works’ (2003+). choosing instead to make the component The latter are portraits of found, familiar parts of her works herself wherever she objects, each hidden beneath cloth coverings. feasibly can. Over the years she has learned The large gelatin silver print, Gloss II (2007) about a range of skills, including macramé, features a structure fabricated by the artist, pottery, basket weaving and notably tapestry the proportions and composition of which from the Dovecot Weavers, are recognisably those of an upright piano. (evident in Quick Slow) and, most recently Reduced to a rudimentary construction, more Becky Beasley Night Music 2007 hat-making, the result of which we can like a bookshelf or the carcass of a kitchen see in Flat Peach (2010) included here. That cabinet, Beasley’s structure is in fact an she learns each technique as she is in the exact 2:3 model of a piano, though only in its process of making the work invariably lends framework or ‘housing’ and not its functional the resultant objects a distinctly hand-made components. quality, emphasising their origination. The fleshy tones of the leather and sinamay Beasley’s interest in surface, or perhaps in Flat Peach, which find an echo in the more accurately finish, is evident in the ultra- accompanying unique screenprints, set up matt surfaces of her photographs and the a further connection through forms that occasional use of high-gloss in the objects are suggestive of pockets or mittens, forms she makes. This interest is manifest in the directly shaped for the body. large print Gloss II and its related sculpture Night Music (2007) which takes the same form By contrast, the readymade object plays and makes it strangely unfamiliar through an important part in the work of Becky the simple act of turning it on its side. Beasley, albeit concealed or at one remove The latter work also exemplifies the kind of Becky Beasley Infirme 2004/2006 Becky Beasley Stool, Towel 2006 Structure & Material Katrina brown

literary connections at play in Beasley’s work, our place between the two, an experience into the space around them or as one critic The enduring resonance of Barbara with a title suggested by a Truman Capote amplified at Longside Gallery by the has it ‘Quite where the work begins or ends Hepworth’s work has never been more short story, Music for Chameleons (1980), that landscape that remains partially visible isn’t clear’ 4. They are always intensely and pertinent, especially with the arrival of features a piano and a black mirror – the two beyond the windows. compellingly vulnerable, a characteristic The Hepworth Wakefield, the first museum objects somehow merged here in Beasley’s that the writer Jonathan Griffin has most dedicated to a woman artist in the UK. She sculpture. The notion of landscape is of great memorably identified: ‘Like a frosty lawn, is a significant figure for all three of the significance to Black, but not necessarily or a giant soap bubble, the impulse to artists here. Hepworth once said, in response A similar translation from one form to another in a pictorial sense: more in the sense of spoil them is somehow essential to our to the question of what role her gender played is in play in the group of wall-mounted works its expanse, its all-encompassing nature. understanding of their vulnerable beauty.5 in her work, that ‘art is anonymous’, denying collectively titled Brocken (I-VII) (2009) and the She has said that: ‘What I am always trying a direct and meaningful connection, and yet two shelves (Shelves for My Parents 2010). to achieve is a sculpture, the experience of A brief note on gender. Claire Barclay acknowledges that ‘I’m sure These strangely potent, though simple objects encountering which could be like suddenly some aspects of my work are a reflection of cannot help but betray their connection to seeing a natural phenomenon like a river or a It is unlikely to pass unnoticed that all three myself’. It seems fitting to conclude as this the human form – their proportions are all too cloud.’3 In the resultant work, the intertwining of the artists in this exhibition are women: but text began, with the words of an artist. While familiar. The walnut woodworks are in fact of structure and material is absolute: she does this bring anything to an appreciation the work here may be anti-language, our derived from the arm of the artist’s father, with often uses materials only ever encountered of their work? Does the temptation to find consideration of it can often most eloquently the hinges standing in place of his joints. in very small quantities in vast, industrial something in that fact simply demonstrate be framed by their words. ‘How much is all The artist has described the sequence of amounts – the tension between slight what Karla Black has described as ‘the of that determined by the fact that I am a works as beginning ‘with a full arm span, materials and their use to create scale and prevalent propensity in the art world to woman? Since I cannot tell, it will have to be a gesture also known colloquially as substance is a recurrent feature. judge only women’s work as gendered’6. The my secret.’7 measuring one’s own grave.’ implication is that any comparable exhibition Along with a distinctive palette of pale featuring the work of exclusively male artists 1 From 1:1 (2010), ‘a fragmentary time-coded In all of these works Beasley exploits the very pastel hues, described by some as being would not be subject to any comment about transcription of parts of a long conversation between Becky Beasley and Michael Dean, April familiarity of the original forms, even when like confetti, Black’s range of materials is the relationship to gender and its bearing 2010, exhibited at Laura Bartlett Gallery, London stylised, reduced, abstracted or covered, a striking characteristic. Some are indeed on our appreciation of the work. A particular to transform the ordinary into something conventionally found in artworks, such as palette of colours (including, of course, pink), 2 Claire Barclay interviewed by Rebecca Fortnum in more troubling, uncanny and full of potential paper, plaster powder and chalk, but it is the textiles, softness and fragility are often Contemporary British Women Artists, I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London, 2007 resonance. Beasley’s works demonstrate the less likely materials for which she has become construed as being somehow feminine – and extent to which the very basic structures of known. She uses household materials, like yet are attributes to be found in the work of 3 Karla Black, It’s Proof That Counts, JRP Ringier, these objects remain innately known to us, cling film or towels and beauty products, many male artists: think for example of the Zürich, 2010 no matter how altered or obscured. like nail varnish, petroleum jelly, glitter eye fleshy coloured sculptures of Franz West, the shadow, hairspray and moisturising cream. hand-printed, floral fabrics of Simon Starling, 4 Moira Jeffrey, ‘Art Review: Karla Black at Modern Art Oxford’, on Sunday, 4 October 2009 There is no anthropomorphism to be found They are all substances that touch the body, Miroslaw Balka’s use of salt and soap or in the work of Karla Black, no recognisable and many of them are designed to satisfy the Matthew Barney’s use of petroleum jelly. And 5 Jonathan Griffin, frieze, Issue 117, September 2008 human forms or dimensions. She is in this desire for improvement or enhancement. what of the contradictory facts of, for example, respect the most truly abstract of the Barclay’s intensely threatening, machined 6 Karla Black,‘A Very Important Time for Handbags’, Karla Black: mistakes made away from home, Mary three artists, and yet a sense of the body is While the forms of Black’s sculptures have metal protrusions? Or how Black achieves Mary, , 2008 inescapable in her work. Immensely fragile been related to Minimalism, they are imbued scale and a sense of weight through her sculptures that regularly expand across with a fragility of surface and are very perilous substances? Can an artist who 7 ibid. large areas of floor or hang from ceilings legibly handmade, clearly the outcome of a is a woman yet make use of pink without are thoroughly imbued with marks of their performative process: there is nothing brute risking that the resultant work be construed making. They seem to articulate surfaces, or hard-edged to be found here. Her works as ‘feminine’? emphasising the ground and the sky, and seem to be without edges, often dissolving Structure & Material, Longside Gallery, March 2011. Photo: Jonty Wilde Structure & Material Claire Barclay

The work I make is influenced by a fascination Quick Slow is the result of an experimental with the functional and dysfunctional nature collaboration with Dovecot Tapestry Weavers. of objects and the psychology that surround I see this work as an attempt to look at tapestry them. Whether slickly manufactured, from a sculptural perspective, exploring not homespun or improvised, useful or redundant, only the pictorial aspect of this art form, but also I am interested in how we comprehend the emphasizing process and materiality. form and meaning of objects by engaging a sophisticated primal understanding of the Claire Barclay, 2011 tactile world we inhabit. The dysfunctional, uncanny quality of the objects I make is difficult to articulate, but has something to do Biography with the relationship between the endeavours and failures by human beings to make things Claire Barclay was born in Paisley, Scotland in beautiful, useful or meaningful. 1968. Since graduating from in 1993, Barclay has exhibited her work The sculptural objects I make or have fabricated, nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions are designed to hover between the familiar and of her work include: Centre of Contemporary Art, the foreign. They utilise a wide range of materials, Glasgow (1997), The Showroom Gallery, London and reference strongly the commonplace and (2000), Tate Britain, London (2004), Stephen functional stuff of the everyday, but are paired Friedman Gallery, London (2005), Kunstverein down, abstracted, manipulated and hybridized in Braunschweig, Germany (2007), Camden Arts order to make them ambiguous and curious. I do Centre, London (2008), The , not use found objects in my work in order to avoid Edinburgh (2009) and MUDAM association with any specific reference, leaving it (2009 -10) and in 2010 she created a new site open to many possible imagined interpretations. specific work for the Bloomberg Commission at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. In 2007 I usually make installations which draw attention to she was awarded the Visual Artists Award by the space they inhabit. Here, however, a selection the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Claire Barclay of elements from a recent installation Flat Peach currently lives and works in Glasgow. (2010) are shown alongside a sculpture Quick Slow (2010) and a series of screen prints.

In reference to the installation Flat Peach, I have distorted the reflective nature of the window in this space with the use of a mirroring technique which results in the distortion and confusion of the views from either side of the glass. The viewer’s fragmented reflection merges with the landscape outside and the exhibition inside.

Claire Barclay Quick Slow 2010 Structure & Material Becky Beasley

These objects and photographs, as mute and Biography minimal as they often appear, unexpectedly open onto literary worlds. Originating not only Becky Beasley was born in Portsmouth, from fictional sources, but also in the objects England in 1975. She graduated from the and experiences of the everyday, the works Royal College of Art, London in 2002 with a are often imaginary abstractions, which Masters degree in Fine Art (Photography). nevertheless retain their original human Since then she has exhibited her work dimensions. both nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include: Annet Gelink Gallery, The earlier photographs presented here Amsterdam (2003), Millefiori Art Space, are concerned with the body, typically Athens (2004), UBU Gallery, Glasgow dens and hiding places, structures which (2006), Office Baroque, Antwerp (2009), have been simply constructed out of found Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2009) and materials. Whether rigid or flexible, these Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London (2010). shroud-like wrappings each propose, with Beasley has also recently shown work in a clear economy of means, the provisional British Art Show 7 (2010-11). Becky Beasley transformation of two-dimensional is represented by Laura Bartlett Gallery, materials and surfaces into volumes. London and Office Baroque Gallery, Antwerp. Beasley currently lives and works in St My beloved parents have provided me Leonards-on-Sea. with the dimensions for a number of works presented here. The brass-hinged series of walnut woodworks, the curtain photographs and the shelves are all built around their body measurements. Brocken performs a minimal choreography for my father’s arms, the brass-hinges positioned to represent his own joints. The sequence begins with a full arm span, a gesture also known colloquially as measuring one’s own grave. This series anticipates – and is perhaps a kind of preparation for – the eventual absence of Becky Beasley Gloss II 2007 the ageing father, as the pieces are gradually removed. Inspired in part by an Austrian novel in which ideas of architecture, landscape, death and the body are united, the work seemed fitting for the vast walls and panoramic views at Longside Gallery.

Becky Beasley, 2011 Structure & Material Karla Black

For me, the existence of art is proof of a Biography human need to express physical instincts. Creativity is just necessary behaviour. Art Karla Black was born in Alexandria, – the refined and civilised evidence of this Scotland in 1972. She studied at Glasgow behaviour – is one example of what society School of Art, where she gained a BA (Hons) will accept in return for granting permission degree in Fine Art (1995-1999) followed by to those who wish to behave like the animals Masters degrees in Philosophy (1999-2000) they are. Art is a rationalisation of sorts for and Fine Art (2002-2004). Previous solo enacting one’s true self. However, because exhibitions include: Mary Mary, Glasgow the approval of others is required, a person (2006 and 2009), Galerie Gisela Capitain, cannot sustain the experience of making in Cologne (2008), Migros Museum, Zurich their life without also making this proof of it. (2009), Modern Art Oxford (2009), Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009), Capitain Petzel, The sculptures in this exhibition are made Berlin (2010), Kunsthalle Nürnberg, from a mixture of traditional art making Nürnberg (2010) and the 54th Venice materials like plaster powder, paper and Biennale, Venice (June – November 2011). chalk, along with more everyday substances Karla Black currently lives and works in such as toothpaste, nail varnish, ribbon and Glasgow. soap. These sculptures are part of an overall working practice that prioritises material experience over language as a way to learn about and understand the world.

Karla Black, 2011

Karla Black Unused To 2007. Photo: Jonty Wilde Structure & Material

List of Works Untitled 2010 Stool, Towel 2006 Brocken (II) (As it Brocken (V) (He stressed Brocken (VIII) (In lieu of Curtains (II) (...and this Shelves for My Parents Unique screenprint on Gloss fibre-based gelatin happened, the window several times that he a conclusion, I should sense of option is really (A Shelf for My Mother, A All measurements are paper silver print handle was lying on a was only interested like to tell the rest of my quite a marvellous luxury. Shelf for My Father) 2010 in centimetres, height x 58 x 41 31 x 31 copy of the Viennese in an exact replica, Bernhard-anecdote. It’s a luxury that you Oak veneer, MDF, steel width x depth. Courtesy the artist and Arts Council Collection, newspaper ‘Die Presse’. identical replacement When he had left the cannot permit yourself 160 x 40 x 6.5 Stephen Friedman Gallery Southbank Centre, Bernhard was visibly or absolutely the same Kaffeehaus, the waiter in the concert hall, you 188.3 x 40.5 x 6.5 Not all works will be shown London, purchased 2010 displeased by this fact thing.) 2009 came and opened the simply cannot, you would Courtesy Office Baroque at all venues. Untitled 2010 and decided to re-arrange Black American walnut, window close to the be dead if you walked Gallery, Antwerp, Laura Unique screenprint on Trap 2006 the papers so that his brass, steel table where I had had on stage not being quite Bartlett Gallery, London Claire Barclay paper Matt fibre-based gelatin window handle came to 80 x 36 x 8.4 my encounter with certain...) 2009 and the artist 58 x 41 silver print, archival linen lie on the ‘Neue Zürcher Courtesy Laura Bartlett Bernhard. He responded Seamed gelatin silver Flat Peach 2010 Courtesy the artist and tape, eyelets Zeitung’.) 2009 Gallery, London to my questioning look by print, archival tape, green Trough Box 2010 Sinamay, aluminium rod, Stephen Friedman Gallery 141 x 178 Black American walnut, saying: “It is rather stuffy, acrylic glazing White Oak, black foam, machined aluminium, Arts Council Collection, brass, steel Brocken (VI) (Without isn’t it? But you see, Herr 181 x 70.5 wood glue leather and stained wood Untitled 2011 Southbank Centre, 47 x 149 x 8.4 it he felt that he could Bernhard does not like Courtesy Laura Bartlett 130 x 18 x 18 Dimensions variable Mirror paint on glass London, purchased 2010 Courtesy Laura Bartlett never open his favourite open windows, for he is Gallery, London 132 x 20 x 20 Courtesy Stephen Dimensions variable Gallery, London window in his Viennese afraid of draughts.” – Courtesy Office Baroque Friedman Gallery Courtesy the artist and Gloss II 2007 domicile again. The Rüdiger Görner) 2009 Curtains (III) (But in fact Gallery, Antwerp Laura Stephen Friedman Gallery Matt fibre-based gelatin Brocken (III) (All of this point was that only an Black American walnut, what happens is that Bartlett Gallery, London Quick Slow 2010 silver print, archival linen happened without him ‘identical’ object could brass, steel by one o’clock in the and the artist Painted steel, tapestry Becky Beasley tape, eyelets commenting on what he help him in this matter... 61 x 2 x 8.4 afternoon, having given (wool, silk, linen, made 168 x 200 was doing. But once his But the real point was still Courtesy Laura Bartlett it three hours of work, I Karla Black in collaboration with Hide 2004-2006 Arts Council Collection, broken window handle to come.) 2009 Gallery, London may not have come to any Dovecot Weavers, Gloss fibre-based gelatin Southbank Centre, had found its proper Black American walnut, definitive conclusions, Unused To 2007 Edinburgh), silver print London, purchased 2010 place between the two brass, steel Curtains (I) (There have but I will finally have Sugar paper, chalk, printed fabric, machined 40 x 32 of us, I could not help 80 x 36 x 8.4 been many occasions selected one of these polythene, toothpaste, brass Arts Council Collection, Night Music 2007 noticing a sly smile on his Courtesy Laura Bartlett when I have recorded options and made it nail varnish, hair gel, 189 x 100 x 45 Southbank Centre, Steel, HDF, acrylic glass, face.) 2009 Gallery, London something and I have my priority and out of ribbon Arts Council Collection, London, purchased 2010 blackboard paint Black American walnut, come into the studio at this created a viable Dimensions variable Southbank Centre, 125 x 147 x 59 brass, steel Brocken (VII) (After some 10 o’clock on a Monday performance -Glenn Arts Council Collection, London, purchased 2010 Infirme 2004-2006 Courtesy Office Baroque 47 x 102 x 8.4 moments of silence morning and really been Gould) 2009 Southbank Centre, Black and white gloss Gallery, Antwerp, Laura Courtesy Laura Bartlett Bernhard said that if he in sixteen, not just two Seamed gelatin silver London, purchased 2007 Soft Group 2010 fibre-based gelatin silver Bartlett Gallery and the Gallery, London was really looking for different minds, but print, archival tape, green Machined aluminium, print artist the absolutely identical sixteen different minds acrylic glazing Persuader Face 2011 screenprinted aluminium 33 x 41 Brocken (IV) (Bernhard duplicate of this ‘broken’ as to how it should go...) 181 x 70.5 Finishing plaster, make- foil and stained wood Arts Council Collection, Brocken (I) (During now embarked on telling window handle, then he 2009 Courtesy Laura Bartlett up, bath bombs Dimensions variable Southbank Centre, my conversation with me about the history could only hope for yet Seamed gelatin silver Gallery, London 9.5 x 741 x 559 Courtesy the artist and London, purchased 2010 Thomas Bernhard, he of this broken window ‘another broken’ window print, archival tape, green Courtesy Galerie Gisela Stephen Friedman Gallery suddenly took a broken handle and that he handle. Consequently, acrylic glazing Capitain, Cologne Covering (1) (Athens window handle out of had been searching all he would never be able 181 x 70.5 Untitled 2010 Archive) 2004-2007 his pocket and placed it over Vienna to find a to open his favourite Courtesy Laura Bartlett What To Ask Of Others Diptych, unique Gloss fibre-based gelatin quite carefully in front of duplicate.) 2009 window handle again.) Gallery, London 2011 screenprint on paper silver print him on a table with some Black American walnut, 2009 Polythene, plaster 58 x 41 37. 3 x 37.3 newspapers.) 2009 brass, steel Black American walnut, powder, paint, thread Courtesy the artist and Arts Council Collection, Black American walnut, 80 x 69 x 8.4 brass, steel Dimensions variable Stephen Friedman Gallery Southbank Centre, brass, steel Courtesy Laura Bartlett 61 x 36 x 8.4 Courtesy Galerie Gisela London, purchased 2010 2 x 196 x 8.4 Gallery, London Courtesy Laura Bartlett Capitain, Cologne Untitled 2010 Courtesy Laura Bartlett Gallery, London Diptych, unique Gallery, London screenprint on paper 58 x 41 Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery Structure & Material, Longside Gallery, March 2011. Photo: Jonty Wilde Structure & Material

Claire Barclay Becky Beasley Karla Black

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park 31 March – 26 June 2011

Spike Island, Bristol 9 July – 4 September 2011 www.spikeisland.org.uk

The New Art Gallery, Walsall 30 September – 24 December 2011 www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk

© Southbank Centre 2011 © images: the artists 2011 © text: Katrina Brown, Caroline Douglas and the artists 2011

The Arts Council Collection supports artists in the UK through the purchase and display of their work. Since it was founded in 1946, the Collection’s acquisitions policy has always been characterised by a spirit of risk taking combined with an informed appraisal of current practice. As a consequence, the Arts Council Collection is now the largest national loan collection of modern and contemporary British art in the world. For more information about the Arts Council Collection, please visit our website at www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk