Karla at the Fruitmarket
Karla Black makes bright, pastel coloured sculptures. Some of her materials include pink powder and vaseline. Looking at her installations, you feel like you have seen them before, like they’re a part of you, a childhood dream made tangible. It’s not the mundanity of the materials that makes you feel connected to the artwork, as claim the wall panels; it’s their evanescence: you could just stick your finger into the still-wet paint and smear it across the mirror – as she did! – and you’d have destroyed the sacred piece. Just a soft blow and the powder, delicately covering the floor, would rise up into the air. An irreversible alteration, an intrusion.
Karla wouldn’t want you to be too careful, though. She stuck gold foil to walls that shiver in the wind (a higher power, from outside the gallery!), and sprinkled brown soil onto black floor – a fine line between the artwork’s space and yours as a spectator. Maybe Karla wants you to oversee that line. Overstep it. A calculated accident.
