Ιn the context of SPOTLIGHT programme, which highlights works from the collection of EMΣT, the museum is pleased to unveil two important works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift, a large-scale installation by Scottish artist Karla Black (b. 1972) and a series of photographs by indigenous Australian artist Tracey Moffatt (b. 1960), allowing audiences to gain a better understanding of these two artists’ practice. Both artists are also included in the current collection exhibition Women, together, on the 3rd floor of the Museum.
The installation Stop counting (2013) by Scottish artist Karla Black is shown in Project Room 1, also on the 3rd floor. Karla Black uses unconventional and unexpected materials – such as cosmetics, sugar, and cellophane – in her artistic practice to create monumental installations, challenging established ideas about art’s permanence or longevity. Her sculptures initially appear fragile yet possess an imposing presence, inviting viewers to explore the tension between fragility and durability, encouraging reflection on life’s transience. Black challenges the hierarchy of art materials, elevating the everyday to the realm of the extraordinary. Her large-installation Stop Counting which takes over almost the entire space, consists of hundreds of strips of transparent adhesive tapes hanging vertically between the ceiling and floor that have been altered only by paint-stained fingerprints. The title of the work itself suggests a critique of quantification and the way we often measure art in numerical terms, inviting viewers to engage with the work on a more intuitive level. The artist’s approach to colour is equally mesmerizing; she incorporates pastel hues and muted tones around the area where the tapes touch the ground, creating a dreamlike and almost ethereal atmosphere. Karla Black’s art sparks wonder, urging viewers to embrace their senses and emotions.
Tracey Moffatt’s series of 25 photographs Up in the Sky (1997), exhibited in Project Room 2, is linked to Australia, raising difficult issues regarding social exclusion, assimilation policies, unequal relationships and the oppression of Aboriginal people by white settler colonialists. The images resemble stills from black and white film, whose script is not bound by the rules of linear narrative. They make reference to two films: the post-apocalyptic action film Mad Max (1979) and the world in which its lone vigilante protagonist wanders, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone (1961), a tough film about the underworld of Rome and life on the streets. Moffatt’s protagonists – disparate in terms of age, race, social background – who inhabit a menacing setting of a poverty and violence ravaged Australian country town, infer chronically problematic situations; the Aboriginal baby, alone or in the white woman’s arms, for example, is seen as a direct reference to the trauma of the “Stolen Generations”, the name given to the practice of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families by state and church missions.
Coordination: Eleni Koukou, Tina Pandi
BIOGRAPHY
Karla Black was born in Alexandria, Scotland and lives and works in Glasgow. Her work is in major public collections: Tate, London; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; KiCo Collection, Munich. Solo exhibitions (selection): New Art Gallery Walsall, England (2023); Modern Art Gallery, London (2022); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2021); Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2020); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2019); The Power Plant, Toronto (2018), Festival d’Automne, Paris (2017), Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (2017); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2016); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2016); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2013); Dallas Museum of Art, Texas-USA (2012); Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2012). group exhibitions (selection): In a Waiting Room, Fiorucci Art Trust, London (2019); MACBA Collection. Beneath the Surface, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona (2018); Whitechapel Gallery, London, Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg (2014), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016). Black represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).
Tracey Moffatt was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1960 to an Aboriginal mother. She lives and works in Sydney and New York. An experimental photographer and filmmaker, one of the most celebrated contemporary artists to emerge from the Australian art scene in recent decades, Moffatt transformed photographic practice in the late 20th century. She first gained significant critical acclaim when her short film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy was selected for the official competition section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1990. In 1997, she participated in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale – the same year, a major solo exhibition at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York consolidated her international reputation. Extensive presentations of her work have taken place in major museums and institutions worldwide (selection): Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2016); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2014); MoMA, New York (2012); Spazio Oberdan, Milan (2006); Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg (2004); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2003–2004). She has taken part in the Biennales of Gwangju (South Korea), Prague, Sao Paulo, Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), Singapore, and Sydney. In 2017, she represented her country at the Venice Biennale – the only indigenous Australian artist to have achieved this since 1997. Her works can be found in all public collections of modern and contemporary art in Australia, as well as in many private and public collections around the world (selection): Centre Pompidou (Paris), Goetz Collection (Munich), New York Public Library (New York), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York), Baroness Marion Lambert Collection (Switzerland), Brooklyn Museum (New York), DZ-Bank (Frankfurt), Guggenheim Museum (New York), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebaek, Denmark), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston), MoMA (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Tate Gallery (London), The National Museum of Photography (Copenhagen).
