Outdoor Works

Boyce presented a major outdoor commission in the landscaped grounds of Mount Stuart. Inspired by the memory of a tennis court long since dismantled, his ongoing interest in abandoned and disused spaces is awakened. The court is close to fiction, undocumented, a relic from the 1970’s. The artist reconsiders and recomposes the structure. Connecting with previous works such as the iconic 2002 Tramway installation Our Love is Like the Flowers, the Rain, the Sea and the Hours, Boyce continues his exploration of sites in between use and misuse, intention and subsequent being. His installation for Mount Stuart involves fragments of these landscapes, an abstracted sense of place rather than a literal description: “one place shipwrecked within another”.

“Over the years I’ve photographed a number of abandoned or disused tennis courts and I’ve collected similar images from books or cut from magazines. There is something fascinating about this rectangle of chain link fence that at once demarcates one place from another, one delineated use or activity from another. Equally fascinating is how over time this idea of use can shift, from organised tennis games to more improvised versions of play to, in a state of disrepair, a place to meet and hangout. It is this in between state that interests me. “

The installation, like a skewed container for dreams, sits with its gate open. The artist’s familiar iconographies are staged within, referencing his interests in twentieth century film noir, literature and the built environment. Boyce’s work mirrors the psyche; his work immerses the public in both personal and collective cultural memory.

Commission for Galeries Lafayette

At 37, rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Martin Boyce created the timeless work entitled A Thousand Future Blossoms. Inspired by the cubist trees created by the Martel brothers for the ’1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts’, Martin Boyce’s work is nurturing the growth of concrete vegetation in the Marais. This hybrid between nature and its artifices is at the core of the artist’s poetry. Martin Boyce draws inspiration from historic motifs in order to grow a graphic forest at the heart of the city. “I developed a pattern, the linear transcription of a tree. I realized by repeating this tree, I was creating a forest, a graphic forest.“

At 37, rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Martin Boyce created the timeless work entitled A Thousand Future Blossoms. Inspired by the cubist trees created by the Martel brothers for the ’1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts’, Martin Boyce’s work is nurturing the growth of concrete vegetation in the Marais. This hybrid between nature and its artifices is at the core of the artist’s poetry. Martin Boyce draws inspiration from historic motifs in order to grow a graphic forest at the heart of the city. “I developed a pattern, the linear transcription of a tree. I realized by repeating this tree, I was creating a forest, a graphic forest.“

Commission for Tate Britain linking the main gallery building with the Clore Gallery.

Reception desk Carrara marble 610 x 110 x 120 cm
Floor Wachenzeller dolomit
Furniture Benches, conference tables, sideboards, coffee tables Various materials and sizes
9 sculptures Concrete, steel reinforcement 500 x 24.5 x 24.5 cm
10 vents Bronze, perforated steel 50 x 25 x 2.5 cm

Commission for Swiss Re

TELUS Garden Public Art commission, Vancouver, 2016

Situated on Glasgow Green, Sacrilege was revealed as a full-scale, inflatable replica of Stonehenge, one of the UK’s most recognisable heritage sites. The ambitious new sculptural installation in the form of a magnificent bouncy castle is characteristic of Deller’s on-going exploration of contemporary culture and continues the Festival’s commitment to presenting engaging works in the public realm. Sacrilege is Deller’s first major public project in Scotland and has been commissioned by GI Festival 2012 in collaboration with the Mayor of London and with investment from Creative Scotland. With funding from Arts Council England Sacrilege will also travel to different locations in the UK this June, before being shown in London this summer as part of CREATE and the London 2012 festival.

'I like what has happened in Manchester – historically, politically, musically – and I’ve always enjoyed being there, so when I was asked to make a public artwork for Manchester International Festival in 2009, I assembled a procession of the city’s people and their activities. It was mostly a celebration of public space and the people occupying it: buskers, smokers, car modifiers, The Big Issue sellers and so on. One of the elements was Valerie’s Snack Bar, this café in Bury Market, which just seemed to be a great gathering place for OAPs, the snack bar was almost exactly replicated and put on the back of a lorry and taken for a spin. As with any procession, there are lots of contradictory elements: some are traditional, others are contemporary or even futuristic. I wanted in a way to try and make something a bit like a procession you would see on The Simpsons, a sort of social surrealist event full of bizarre, funny, wrong-seeming things.'

Jeremy Deller

Ed. 2 of 2 + 1 AP

A seven-metre tall mirror construction encircles a tree. In time, the crab apple will grow larger and the branches will meander along the glass and eventually merge with the strict framework. The artwork stands among stately oaks at the Botanical institution in the university area of Frescati on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm. In the nearby buildings, students are learning about botany, the doctrine of the plant kingdom, which is reflected in Henrik Håkansson’s multifaceted work A Tree Reflected (Malus sylvestris). The tall glass construction circles the trunk of the crab apple tree and extends in four directions. The glass is laminated and partly transparent, partly reflective, depending on the position of the viewer and the time of day and weather conditions. The yellow autumn leaves and the apple bloom will appear in different layers through the reflections of the glass. In time the tree will merge with the walls. Measuring 7 x 7 metres, this gigantic work creates an interesting interplay with the surrounding park and the large oaks. It also displays consideration for the fauna; the thin, horizontal lines along the glass prevent small birds from colliding with it

Henrik Håkansson’s artworks often begin with the unique flora and fauna of the site; at Wanås, he enclosed a 2,500 square metre area with a chain link fence. Neither visitors, artists, park attendants, nor animals can access this area. The Reserve (001) becomes an autonomous island in the existing landscape. He thereby makes it possible for the area to develop on its own for the foreseeable future, offering a contrast to the surrounding nature.

Mark Handforth’s most recent exhibition at The Modern Institute in 2018 included five new sculptural forms within the Osborne Street gallery space, which developed from the idea of the garden, and in particular, Handforth’s own tropical garden in Miami. Central to the exhibition was two large sculptural pieces – ‘Jade Garden’ and ‘Asphalt Snake’ – which resemble oversized, crumpled and chopped pipes – anthropomorphic in form they search for a point of balance.

Mark Handforth’s most recent exhibition at The Modern Institute in 2018 included five new sculptural forms within the Osborne Street gallery space, which developed from the idea of the garden, and in particular, Handforth’s own tropical garden in Miami. Central to the exhibition was two large sculptural pieces – ‘Jade Garden’ and ‘Asphalt Snake’ – which resemble oversized, crumpled and chopped pipes – anthropomorphic in form they search for a point of balance.

Pink Panther, an aluminium pipe has been bent by sheer force exerted onto it, until the pipe finally succumbed to the pressure. Yet this supposed act of destruction has resulted in a form, an inevitable star. Aloof and balanced on one leg, Pink Panther stands apart with absurd poise. Its rather strange matte pink colour (itself the counterintuitive camouflage paint devised by the British for desert ops, and which gives the sculpture its title) is as theatrical as it is self-effacing.

Snow White is a monumental white star, constructed from folded aluminium and painted to reflect light and absorb shadow. It is equal parts unhinged signage, dislocated symbol and artefact of humanity. Stars, as we see them in the night sky, are just endless lines of pulsing light radiating out indefinitely, energetic beginnings with no end in sight.

Like an errant maypole, The Twist, a gestural totem for this little green urban island, is a knotted, painted aluminium rod, which arcs and crumples its way to a height of six and a half meters. This anthropomorphised metal pipe, slowly bending, curving, blushing, twisting and tying itself in knots it becomes something like another body on the green; fleshing itself out, both ethereal and grounded.

Cast in aluminium, the eponymous two bananas lean against each other. The viewers actively become part of the work, their bodies dwarfed by the sheer magnitude over three meters high of the shimmering metal fruit. Mark Handforth refers to late twentieth century art movements such as Minimal Art and Pop Art as languages that he has learned to speak, and he is grateful to be able to switch between several languages in one and the same sentence.

Edition of 3 + 2 AP

Ed. of 3 + 2 AP

Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs

Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs

Ed. of 3 + 2 AP

The luminous-coloured ladders stretch towards the ceiling at angles that recall their functionality. Yet here these commonplace objects have deliberately been stripped of all utility by mirrors installed between the rungs. The combination results in a kaleidoscopic interaction of colour, shape and form that beguiles the viewer with its familiarity, while intriguing them with its reversal. “Spiral Scratch deliberately looks to change the space it occupies, redirecting the rhythm and psychological dynamics in much the same way putting a record can. As the black and white floor-work swells through Garden Court the space grows and shrinks, pulling the viewer through the space, only for the ladders to demand attention by showing new perspectives in their unexpected reflections,” said Jim Lambie.

Jim Lambie has included every band which played at the Barrowland between 1983 and 2013 in 'Untitled' as part of the commission for the brands for the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme. Lambie said: “I was delighted to be asked to create a new work for the existing gap site at Trongate. In homage to the Barrowland ballroom and local market being such an iconic part of Glasgow, it makes perfect sense for the area and the local community for a pathway to be introduced which would wind its way through the new, temporary parkland. The pathway resembles the side view of a vinyl record collection, placed on a shelf at home and is similar to the rows of vinyl records I would scour on my visits to the Barra’s market. It is an image familiar to most people, and an image which connects both conceptually and emotionally with the Barrowland Ballroom, the Barra’s market and most importantly the local community and the people of Glasgow.”

Commission for BBC Scotland

Ed. of 3 + 2 AP

Eva Rothschild created a work that responded to the role of Doris C. Freedman Plaza as an important and heavily used entry point to Central Park. The sculpture represented a gateway, referencing the natural, muscular forms of the trees that line the site as well as the complex mass of buildings that border the Midtown Manhattan site. Rising to nearly 20 feet and spidering over the center of the Plaza, the sculpture is fabricated in four-inch diameter steel painted with red, green, and black stripes and lightly rests on the ground at ten different points. Rothschild notes, “The stripes climb over the arch in different densities and widths, the colors switching from foot to foot, transforming the fixed staggered lines into vectors and visually destabilizing what viewers know to be a solid structure. The sculpture takes the form of a multidirectional arch extending the natural arches formed by the trees that beckon the public into Central Park. The Plaza is a threshold, and the work aims not to congest the space but to heighten awareness of the shift that takes place when one steps out of the street and into the Park. It should become another gateway between two different worlds of urban experience.”

Ed. of 3 + 1 AP

Drawing from the architectural history of communist-era Poland, Monika Sosnowska’s sculpture Fir Tree reimagines the external staircase of a Socialist housing block as a 40-foot tall sculpture first installed at Doris C. Freedman Plaza and now installed in a private collection in Standfordville in New York. Fir Tree built on Sosnowska’s previous works exploring the architectural features and domestic spaces of her native Poland—many of which continue to elicit strong emotions. Similar to her 2010 sculpture, The Staircase, which was installed in an external atrium at K21 in Düsseldorf, this work began with a functional staircase, replete with red PVC handrail. Using pulleys, cranes, and other industrial machines, Sosnowska manipulates the familiar form, pulling and bending it to achieve a new state. Reminiscent of an evergreen tree with its heavy branches bowing toward the ground, the tall, slender form soars above the Plaza, marking the transition from dense urban space to cultivated landscape.

Starling collaborated with Japanese theatre painters, Toru Okada and Takeshi Furukawa, to create a large painting that mimics the backdrop of the Japanese Noh theatre, in which the motif of a pine tree is the gateway to the spirit world. Besides Noh Theatre, Starling was inspired by the Japanese tree species found in the museum park, as well as the Impressionist works in the collection.

Project for a Public Sculpture (After Thomas Annan) was developed in part as a response to the uses and abuses of the visual arts as an instrument of the ongoing urban renewal of Glasgow. The project takes the form of a life-sized model or casting pattern for a large-scale public sculpture. The model, which at first glance reassembles a generic modernist, abstract sculpture, was generated from a microscopic image-fragment, a single silver particle from a traditional gelatin silver photographic print, which has been enlarged 10 million times. The site for the exhibition, a soon-to-be-demolished, semi-derelict, public baths and wash house on Osborne Street, was built in 1894 by the Office of Public Works as part of the process of urban renewal that transformed the slums of the Glasgow Cross area following the intervention of the ‘City Improvement Trust’. In 1866 the Trust commissioned the Scottish photographer Thomas Annan (1829 – 1887) to document the closes around the Saltmarket, High Street, Gallowgate and Bridgegate. These unprecedented documentary photographs marked a period of intense overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and disease in large areas of a city whose population had grown five-fold in the preceding 60 years. Project for a Public Sculpture... began with the reprinting of an image of Close No. 101, High Street, Glasgow from one of the original glass-plate negatives produced by Thomas Annan in 1866. A circular section of the resulting print was then cut away and stripped of its silver particles, each individually marked by their exposure to Annan’s negative. A single silver particle (400 nanometres in length) was then identified and repeatedly scanned from different angles in a Transmitting Electron Microscope at the Department of Infection & Immunity, University of Glasgow, in order to build up a 3D model or ‘tomograph’ of the particle. This ‘virtual’ model was then once again given physical form, albeit hugely magnified, by a computer guided milling machine. The resulting sculpture will be exhibited along with the ‘holed’ Thomas Annan image in what remains of the public baths.

Originally developed for Mass MOCA this artwork attempts to collapse the particular labour history of the former industrial town of North Adams, Massachusetts onto current global trends in manufacture. Two silver particles, from a pair of stereoscopic photographs from 1875 of a group of Chinese migrant workers outside the Sampson shoe factory, were extracted from the prints’ emulsion, and working with scientists in nearby Albany, New York, 3-D images of the silver particles were created with the aid of a one million volt electron microscope. The scanned images of the particles were then translated into computer renderings from which three-dimensional models were produced. These models of the tiny image fragments were then replicated as immensely enlarged sculptural objects, one million times their original size, forged in mirror-finish stainless steel in Nanjing, China and finally exhibited back in the post-industrial setting of Mass MOCA’s vast exhibition space.

Originally conceived to float on Loch Lomond, Scotland within the newly established Scottish National Park, Island for Weeds is a support structure designed to sustain and contain a small number of Rhododendron ponticum plants. It is part of a body of work by Starling that focuses on the introduction and subsequent demonisation of this hardy shrub. While admired for its flamboyant spring blooms and still featured in many a picturesque image of the Scottish landscape, Rhododendron ponticum has become a major problem for landowners and conservationists alike. Its presence in the National Park poses fundamental questions in relation to the nature and make-up of the country’s landscape—questions finally considered to be too contentious to be addressed by a public art work. Island for Weeds is designed around a number of plastic pipes of the type most commonly used for gas mains under the road. Due to their fatigue- resistant characteristics they are also increasingly deployed in marine engineering and fisheries. The system is designed in such a way that it can regulate its own height in the water using compressed air stored in the dark blue pipes and varying amounts of water stored in the yellow pipes below. If the soil on the island becomes too heavy from excessive rain, a switch is triggered by a depth gauge and water is blown out of the yellow tanks causing the island to rise back to the correct level. The system is maintained from time to time by topping up the dark blue pressurised pipes with a scuba tank.

DOES THE ITERATIVE FIT is a temporary publicly sited sculptural and audio artwork originally commissioned in 2017 by The Kings Cross Project and originally installed in Granary Square London during the Christmas period. Drawing on visual motifs that Tatham and O’Sullivan recycle and reinterpret within their practice alongside a specifically devised audio soundtrack, DOES THE ITERATIVE FIT is a response to and critique of the context of its original commission brief. Through a reimagining of the behaviours or interpretations of publicly sited sculpture DOES THE ITERATIVE FIT uses the forms, modes, and behaviours of contemporary art practice and its discourse, with the brief to produce a Christmas tree and the context of its site. Tatham and O’Sullivan’s response takes an over-determined outcome as a starting point through which to consider the functions that art can be expected to perform within the public sphere. Tatham and O’Sullivan designed a number of absurd characteristics, that both delivered the entertaining spectacle of a Christmas Tree, whilst also providing a disruptive mechanism for critique.

The indirect exchange of uncertain value was developed in response to the nature of public and private space within Edinburgh. The imposing landmark of Fettes College building, with its extensive grounds, brings issues of public and private space into sharp focus. The project will work with and against this context to consider the wider relationship of the public to the private, with particular reference to the role of education and the instrumentalisation of art within the public sphere for the public good.

Enveloping the gallery, Wright produced a new wall painting that covered the Aird’s Lane gallery space’s front façade. Hand-painted posters, pasted on to the external walls, doors, windows and shutters, are fleeting and temporal in nature. They interpreted and traced the architecture of the space, transforming the building into an artwork and make painting perceptible, as a spatial experience.