Kate V Robertson

In her first solo gallery show since being shortlisted for Artists Taking The Lead, Kate V Robertson brings the supporting structures of the gallery: the plinths, the shelves and the gallery walls, to the fore.

At first glance, What Structures is a series of sculptural pieces in a white gallery space. However, on a closer look, the ‘art’ objects on display carry far less weight than the animated, or elaborate structures on which they rest. Framed scribbles hang on moving walls, leaves, burned-out candles and pieces of tarnished metal sit on decorated rostra or move on coasters made of mirror balls, and from the ceiling the gallery security system beams CCTV observations up into the centre of a frosted glass plinth.

In drawing attention to the supporting structures of formally exhibited gallery work, Robertson wants to draw attention to the framework in which art is viewed, perhaps questioning whether such an established set of conventions has neutralised any radical potential of artists and their objects.

What Structures picks up Robertson’s interest in the context in which we experience art, as well as the futility of communication, following on from her acclaimed Edinburgh Art Festival street exhibition, Notices, in which temporary art works were hidden in amongst advertising hoardings full of posters advertising Fringe shows.

About the artist
Kate V Robertson has a rich and varied practise, taking in kinetic and found sculptural work, live performance, audio and aural work, fine art photography and video. She has exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Berlin, Melbourne, Belfast, Leeds and London as well as extensively in Edinburgh and Glasgow. As an artist she is interested in ideas of futility and disappointment, often making reference to these themes in cultural or political history. The tone of her work often rests between humour and pathos, will sometimes deliberately fail or miscommunicate, and involves a level of interaction from the viewer.

In 2009 her video works were selected for Running Time, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s retrospective of Scottish video art, and screened in New York, Boston and Edinburgh, she was shortlisted for the £500,000 Artists Taking The Lead prize, created the public art piece Notices for for the Edinburgh Art Festival, performed at Les Urbaines festival in Lausanne and the Plateaux Festival of Live Art in Frankfurt, and graduated from Glasgow School of Art’s prestigious postgraduate MFA course with distinction (her graduating piece, Expire, gained her a lot of attention as she made the disused chimney at Tramway smoke again).

Robertson will follow What Structures with a new public art commission for Glasgow International Art Festival.