The Untitled (ELBA...) sculpture is made from manilla document folders that have been enlarged to the artist's height
Courtesy the artist, The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd, Meyer Riegger, Berlin 2012 Scott Myles, Untitled (ELBA Black,Grey, Green)
Courtesy the artist, The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd, Meyer Riegger, Berlin 2012 Scott Myles, Untitled (ELBA Black,Grey, Green)
This may be the first solo exhibition for Scott Myles at Dundee Contemporary Arts but his history with the building stretches back to his youth.
While at college in the 1990s Myles regularly skateboarded in the derelict building having no idea that one day it would be redeveloped into a gallery that would showcase his work.
Myles has gone on to exhibit widely across Europe and North America and now lives in Glasgow, but chose the place he was born, raised and art-educated for his first UK solo show.
Referencing his experience of the building as a skate park Myles has created a large-scale installation of bare brick walls for the exhibition that represent how the site looked during his early days there.
A lithograph from STABILA (black and blue) which shows reproduced evidence from an assault case tried in Glasgow
Courtesy the artist, The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd, Meyer Riegger, Berlin 2012 Scott Myles, STABILA (Black and Blue)
Courtesy the artist, The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd, Meyer Riegger, Berlin 2012 Scott Myles, STABILA (Black and Blue)
Echoing the Cutler Ridge showroom they built for the company in Miami, Myles has created the brick wall in three separate segments which appear to align as a single structure, depending on the viewer’s perspective.
What appears to be one complete wall without fault is actually three, each in a state of potential ruin.
Also shown at the site is STABILA (black and blue) which reproduces evidence from a court case in Glasgow where a dispute between two builders on a construction site ended with one assaulting the other with a STABILA branded spirit-level.
The artwork appears as 24 lithographs on screen-printed colour backgrounds in which Myles shows how the tool, usually used to achieve balance, has acted as a means to tip from stability into chaos.
Myles’ interest in low-tech urban architecture is also evident in Analysis (Mirror), a sculpture of two bus shelters upturned one on top of the other that have been coated with a highly reflective paint to act as a mirror, yet retain their graffiti, scratches and cigarette burns as a mark of their history.
A new body of work, Untitled (ELBA…) will also be on display featuring wall based sculptures that take their form from manilla document folders as a means by which the artist looks to explore systems of index and archives.
This Production shows how far Myles has come since his skateboarding days in Dundee 15 years ago when he first exhibited in the city- a self organised show at his late grandfather’s flat.
- Open Tuesday- Saturday: 11am-6pm Thursday: Late night opening until 8pm Sunday: 12-6pm Monday: Closed. Admission: Free.
