Fruitmarket Segments podcast

1:12:11

Artist Karla Black in conversation with Fruitmarket Director, Fiona Bradley, discussing how Barry Le Va’s work inspires and informs her approach to materials and continues to have relevance for artists working today. This conversation, recorded in January 2025, accompanied the Fruitmarket show Barry Le Va: In a State of Flux , the first-ever major exhibition in the UK of the work of ground-breaking American artist and the first comprehensive museum exhibition anywhere since his death in 2021. The work of Le Va has long been a touchstone for Black. Sharing a use of fragmented and scattered materials, including powders – chalk and flour for Le Va; plaster dust, pigment and soil for Black – both artists make predominantly floor-based work that explores the transient nature of materials. Both practices rail against the apparent permanence of traditional sculpture, revealing, as Black puts it ‘that material in this world is only ever either flying together or flying apart and it’s only the limited experience we as human beings can have of time that leads us to believe that an object is permanent.’ Similarly, Le Va sought ‘to eliminate sculpture as a finished, totally resolved object’ and maintain its potential energy in a state of flux. A video of this conversation is available on Fruitmarket’s YouTube. Further details about In a State of Flux , including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive , where you can also see more about Karla Black’s 2021 exhibition sculptures (2001–2021) details for a retrospective . The books on Barry Le Va and Karla Black that accompanied each exhibition are available to buy from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram .…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Leonor Antunes 1:01:13

8 days ago1:01:13

1:01:13

Portuguese, Berlin-based artist Leonor Antunes in conversation with Professor Briony Fer and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley, recorded in October 2023 to accompany Antunes’ Fruitmarket exhibition the apparent length of a floor area . Leonor Antunes works with traditions of modernist art, architecture and design through sculpture made and displayed with the specifics of a given place in mind. The forms and materials of her sculptures reference a history of modernism embedded in the work of its less visible protagonists; overlooked, often female, artists and designers. This cast of historical ‘companions’ enters Antunes’ work in enigmatic ways – through an echo of form or measurement, or the replication of a particular knot, hinge, colour or material – infusing it with their spirit and sensibility. For her show at Fruitmarket, research led Antunes to the work of architect, designer and writer Sadie Speight, whose work included a house in Cumbria for textile designer Alistair Morton of Edinburgh Weavers. Cork, a traditional Portuguese material Antunes has used frequently in her previous work, now had a different resonance for her, inspired by Speight’s extensive use of it in her interiors. Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive . The book produced to accompany the exhibition, written by Briony Fer, is available from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop . A video of this conversation can be viewed on YouTube. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk ,where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram .…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Briony Fer on Eva Hesse 1:02:23

8 weeks ago1:02:23

1:02:23

Professor Briony Fer’s keynote lecture on German-born American artist Eva Hesse, accompanying the 2009 Fruitmarket exhibition Eva Hesse: Studiowork , curated by Fer and Barry Rosen, Director of The Estate of Eva Hesse. Throughout her career, Eva Hesse produced a large number of small, experimental works alongside her large-scale sculpture. These objects, the so-called test pieces, were made in a wide range of materials, including latex, wire-mesh, sculp-metal, wax and cheesecloth. The exhibition was the result of new research by renowned Hesse scholar Professor Briony Fer and proposed that rather than simply technical explorations, these small objects radically put into question conventional notions of what sculpture is. Re-naming them studioworks rather than test pieces, the exhibition and the accompanying major publication offered a timely new interpretation of Hesse’s historical position, as well as highlighting her relevance for contemporary art now. Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive . The book produced to accompany the exhibition is currently out of print. However Briony Fer’s essay on Hesse is included in Words and Things , a celebration of the writing on art published by Fruitmarket over the gallery's fifty-year history. Words and Things is available now from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop . A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram .…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Ibrahim Mahama 1:08:09

8 weeks ago1:08:09

1:08:09

A conversation from October 2024 between Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley and Ibrahim Mahama, a Ghanaian artist critically acclaimed for his evocative large-scale, site-specific installations that speak to the cultural and social effects of post-colonialism and global migration. Mahama’s 2024 Fruitmarket exhibition, Songs about Roses , was his first solo exhibition in Scotland. He worked with materials he collected from the now obsolete railway the British built in Ghana in 1923 to transport minerals and cocoa around the then Gold Coast. Large scale charcoal and ink drawings, sculpture and film bring the materials, histories and ghosts of this defunct railway back to Britain, re-installing it on top of the railway here in Edinburgh. Mahama wraps politics and protest into his materials and methods. His Fruitmarket exhibition is named for a song by Scottish band Owl John: ‘we don’t need songs about roses/Please sing me something new … we don’t need songs about roses/All that we ask for is truth’. Details on Songs about Roses can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive . The book produced to accompany the exhibition is available to buy online from the Fruitmarket bookshop . A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel, where you can also find a discussion between Osei Bonsu, Curator of International Art at Tate, and Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Architecture, design and research practice, YAA Projects, along with Fruitmarket’s Fiona Bradley and Talbot Rice Gallery director Tessa Giblin, responding to Songs About Roses and El Anatsui: Scottish Mission Book Depot Keta, an exhibition by another contemporary Ghanian artist which showed in Edinburgh at the same time. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram .…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Poor Things 1:22:56

26 weeks ago1:22:56

1:22:56

Poor Things was an exhibition of sculptures made by 22 artists, working across the UK, shown at Fruitmarket in spring 2023. It was born out of conversations about art and social class that Emma Hart and Dean Kenning had together, both as friends and as artists. Emma and Dean’s hope for Poor Things was that it might reveal the multiplicity of experiences of artists whose work speaks to working and lower-middle class backgrounds, whilst identifying points of commonality. Details on Poor Things can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive . In May 2023, Emma, Dean and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley spoke with in front of a live audience, with a number of the contributing artists joining via Zoom. They all discussed the show, their experiences and launched the exhibition catalogue, which is still available to buy online from the Fruitmarket bookshop Along with Emma and Dean, the artists who appeared at the event were Linda Aloysius, John Beagles and Graham Ramsay, Joseph Buckley, Andrew Cooper, Jamie Cooper, Lee Holden, Josie Ko, Rebecca Moss, Janette Parris, Anne Ryan, Aled Simons, and Laura Yuile. A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram , Twitter / X or Facebook…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Howardena Pindell 1:05:07

26 weeks ago1:05:07

1:05:07

A November 2021 conversation between Howardena Pindell and Fruitmarket Director, Fiona Bradley, about the selection of works in Howardena Pindell: A New Language at Fruitmarket. This was Howardena Pindell’s first solo exhibition in a public organisation in the UK. The exhibition tracked the development of Pindell’s artistic language from the 1970s to now, and examined her work as exemplary in articulating empowerment. The exhibition brought together a significant selection of her work, and did its best to celebrate and communicate her vision, in the hope that we might all be able to respond to her urgent call for change. Pindell makes beautiful, abstract paintings by spraying paint through a hand-made, hole-punched stencil. She makes intricate, complex paintings that layer paint with collaged paper circles, thread, glitter, powder and sequins. She makes paintings about war, Apartheid, police violence, the AIDS crisis, slavery and the environment. Her works on paper play with the tropes of lists, tallies, graphs and grids. And her two videos, Free White and 21 (1980) and Rope/Fire/Water (2020) confront racism head on. Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book produced to accompany the exhibition is available from the Fruitmarket Bookshop . A film of this conversation is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram , Twitter / X or Facebook…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Karla Black 55:06

27 weeks ago55:06

55:06

Karla Black in conversation with Fiona Bradley, Director of Fruitmarket, from September 2021. This event accompanied Karla’s 2021 exhibition, sculptures (2001–2021) details for a retrospective . Scottish artist Karla Black makes sculptures that begin with a desire to do something. To experiment with certain materials, certain colours. In turn, the sculptures she makes do something: they hang, heap, spread, reach, spill, stand, hover. The materials Karla uses include cosmetics, over-the-counter medicines, cleaning products and packaging as well as the paint, paper and plaster more usually found in fine art. She uses them because she likes them, and wants to see what they can do. She keeps her materials as raw as possible, so that the energy they embody is in the present or the future rather than the past. Details on Karla’s show can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book which accompanied the show is can be ordered online. A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel . A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk , where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram , Twitter / X or Facebook .…

Fruitmarket Segments

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Daniel Silver & Phyllida Barlow 59:29

34 weeks ago59:29