Nathan Coley
Coley will have an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from 25 March 2017, the first in the new season of contemporary presentations, NOW. The exhibition will include Tate Modern on Fire and Paul, shown together for the first time, and Coley’s iconic The Lamp of Sacrifice, 286 Places of Worship, Edinburgh, 2004 (2004).
Installation Photography Peter Mallet All artworks © the artist
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Directors Ben Tufnell, Matt Watkins, Nick Rhodes Gallery Manager Christina Friis Gallery Assistant Marta Jiménez Tubau Technicians Aethan Wills, Alex Duncan, Andy McGeorge
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Parafin 18 Woodstock Street London W1C 2AL +44 (0)20 7495 1969 info@parafin.co.uk www.parafin.co.uk — @parafinlondon
The exhibition also includes Palace (2015), one of Coley’s signature large-scale illuminated text works, and a group of new sculptures which deconstruct self-assemble Shaker furniture. The Shakers adhere to guiding principles of simplicity, utility and honesty and their beliefs are reflected in the pared down forms of their furniture. In these works Coley addresses the conflation of domesticity and religious belief.
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Cover: Nathan Coley Palace 2015
The sculpture also references Ed Ruscha’s controversial painting, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire (1965-68). When that painting was first exhibited Ruscha was asked if it articulated a desire to burn the museum and its contents. Ruscha said, ‘No, but if you want to see that as a political painting, you can — a revolt against an authority figure.’
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Coley’s exhibition at Parafin includes new sculptures and text works. The centerpiece of the show is a major new sculptural work, Tate Modern on Fire (2017). This work is a companion piece to Paul (2015), which depicts St Paul’s Cathedral. The two buildings face each other across the Thames and in doing so establish a complex relationship — between past and present, religion and culture — at the centre of London. While St Paul’s is an iconic religious building, a symbol of London and of the city’s endurance during the blitz, Tate Modern is, it might be argued, a secular cathedral for the twenty-first century. In Coley’s works, both buildings are rendered as architectural models which, while complete from the front, are open at the back and filled with
While the work questions the status of the institution, as with all Coley’s work a rich and complex ambiguity pervades. Is the fire a proposal or a warning? On reflection, what at first seems an act of wilful cultural iconoclasm is revealed to be a more open proposition. Furthermore, at a time when cultural institutions are deemed viable targets by terrorist groups such as IS, the image of a prominent public building on fire carries a host of troubling associations.
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Coley is interested in the idea of ‘public’ space, and his practice explores the ways in which architecture becomes invested – and reinvested – with meaning. Across a range of media Coley investigates what the built environment reveals about the people it surrounds and how social and individual responses to it are in turn culturally conditioned. Using the readymade as a means to take from and re-place in the world, Coley addresses the ritual forms we use to articulate our beliefs. Whether highlighting in illuminated letters the five ‘rights of man’ under Islam, or deconstructing Shaker furniture, his work frequently turns the specific into the general, thereby testing its function as a form of social representation.
associative objects in the manner of a wunderkammer or a cabinet of curiosities.
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Nathan Coley’s (b.1967, Glasgow) first exhibition with Parafin is his first in London in five years and coincides with his biggest public project to date, a major new work installed across ten sites in the Central Denmark region for the year long cultural project Aarhus2017.
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Nathan Coley — 10 February – 18 March 2017
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The Same For Everyone (Lightbox) 2017 Aluminium with fluorescent lamps 105 × 75 × 8 cm, 41 3/8 × 29 1/2 × 3 1/8 in
Palace (Lightbox) 2017 Aluminium with fluorescent lamps 105 × 75 × 8 cm, 41 3/8 × 29 1/2 × 3 1/8 in
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Palace 2015 Lightbulbs, aluminium, scaffolding Dimensions variable
Let no Lessons in Writing be Given 2017 Deconstructed Shaker chair, steel, concrete, wood 110 × 50 × 50 cm, 43 1/4 × 19 3/4 × 19 3/4 in
Trust All to Memory 2017 Deconstructed Shaker chair, steel, concrete, wood 105 × 90 × 45 cm, 41 3/8 × 35 3/8 × 17 3/4 in
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Shaker Boy Meets Modern Girl 2017 Deconstructed Shaker chair, steel, concrete, stained wood 72 × 33 × 34 cm, 28 3/8 × 12 5/8 × 13 3/8 in
“We were in Paris, and had just finished lunch when my brother messaged me to ask if I had heard the news, about the fire. I got back to him saying that wasn’t something to joke about. He sent me a link to it on BBC news, and the terrible images were in my hand. I sat in shock, with tears in my eyes, at the sight of the flames ripping through the roof, and thick black smoke engulfing that so familiar building. How could this be happening? We couldn’t stop looking. It was irresistible, compulsive. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the image was its inevitability — unbearable and unbelievable but also as if foretold.”
Tate Modern on Fire 2017 Stained timber, Perspex 170 × 100 × 90 cm, 66 7/8 × 39 3/8 × 35 3/8 in
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Tate Modern on Fire 2017 Stained timber, Perspex 170 × 100 × 90 cm, 66 7/8 × 39 3/8 × 35 3/8 in
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Nathan Coley Biography — Born 1967, Glasgow, UK Lives and works in Glasgow
Education — 1985-89 Glasgow School of Art Selected Solo Exhibitions — 2017 Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Magdeburg National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh Parafin, London 2015 New Art Centre, Salisbury, UK 2014 You Imagine What You Desire, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh The Lamp of Sacrifice, 286 Places of Worship, Edinburgh, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow From the People, to the People, for the People, Future Perfect, Singapore 2013 A Place Beyond Belief, NDSM-Werf / Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam Burn the Village, Feel the Warmth, The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany 2012 Knowledge, Kindliness and Courage, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver A Place Beyond Belief, Haunch of Venison, London 2011 The Ballast Project, Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam Appearances, ACCA, Melbourne, Australia 2010 In Memory, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh ACCA, Melbourne, Australia There Will Be No Miracles Here, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009 Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway 46 Brooklands Gardens, Jaywick, Essex, UK 2008 De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK Palace, Haunch of Venison, Berlin 2007 Doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh We Must Cultivate Our Garden, George Square, Edinburgh 2006 Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland Gathering of Strangers, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Camouflage Church, Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2005 Jerusalem Syndrome, University of Dundee Cooper Gallery, Dundee Haunch of Venison, London 2004 Showhome, City Arts Centre, Dublin Frutimarket Gallery, Edinburgh Showhome, Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK 2003 Black Tent, Portsmouth Cathedral, Portsmouth Showhome, Locus+, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2002 Ruskin’s Road, Leidsche Rijn, Netherlands (as part of SuperUtrecht)
The Black Maria, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand 2001 The Italian Tower, Keilder Reservoir, Northumberland The Land Marked, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon 2000 International Style, Architectural Association, London 1999 Der Standard, Museum in Progress, Vienna 1998 A Public Announcement, The Changing Room, Stirling Urban Sanctuary: A Public Artwork, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh 1996 Galleri Index, Stockholm, Sweden Selected Group Exhibitions — 2017 The Same For Everyone, Aarhus2017, Aarhus, Denmark Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick, Somerset House, London 2016 Glow, Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven 2015 Bruges Triennial, Belgium House Festival, Brighton, UK 2014 You Imagine What You Desire, 19th Biennale of Sydney 2013 Mom, Am I Barbarian, 13th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey Call of the Mall, City of Utrecht, Netherlands 2012 Miracles, Art, Science, Religion, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria 2011 Big Brother: Artists and Tyrants, Dinard, France Communities without Propinquities, Milton Keynes Art Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK 2010 Let’s Dance, Mac/Val, Paris Park Liv, Marabouparken, Stockholm 2009 Mythologies, Haunch of Venison, London Nuit Blanche 2009, Nuit Blanche, Paris The Enlightenments, The Dean Gallery, SNGMA, Edinburgh Jerusalem Show, Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem 2008 Tales of Time and Space, Folkestone Triennial, Folkestone, UK Prospects and Interiors - Sculptors’ Drawings of Inner Space, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds 2007 The Turner Prize, Tate Liverpool 2006 Making History, Tate Liverpool 2005 British Art Show 6, BALTIC, Gateshead 2004 On Reason and Emotion, Biennale of Sydney 2004, Sydney 2003 Days Like These: Tate Triennial of Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain, London
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