'Black Swan'
Miles Thurlow
Portobello Beach
Edinburgh Art Festival 2010
Preview: 2pm Saturday 31st July
Followed by the Artist in Conversation at 3pm in the Portobello Public Art House,
Kings Road, Portobello.
31st July until Sunday 5th September 2010
Commissioned by Big Things on The Beach as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2010
Black Swan by Miles Thurlow is the third and final 2010 temporary public art work for Portobello Beach, Edinburgh. Commissioned by Big Things on the Beach, as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2010.
Black Swan confronts the viewer with an installation of thirteen Fruit Machines silently and perpetually running through their demo track of flashing lights, cascading in random and geometrical sequences.
Installed at the west end of Portobello beach, Black Swan challenges our conventional expectations of public artwork and monumental sculpture by selecting and presenting the objects of ordinary common culture as Art. Hinting towards both the subversive act of fly tipping and conventions and configurations of public sculpture in an area land-marked for regeneration and gentrification.
Thurlow was influenced by both the local leisure history of Portobello Beach and the recent global economic crash. The title is taken from Black Swan Theory, put forward by writer and senior Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the existence of high - impact and rare events that lie outside the realm of expectations.
Miles Thurlow makes sculpture, drawing, and installations. His work references the demise of modernism and the rise of quick fix, cheap alternatives; investigating the architecture of modern day living and our relationship with the products of consumer culture.
Miles Thurlow was born in 1975 in Colchester, Essex and lives and works in Newcastle and Gateshead, UK.
Also showing:
City Beach Exhibition, presenting the outcomes of the year-long Imagine Porty Prom programme including commissions by
Michael Pinsky and
Grennan and Sperandio, runs Thurs - Sun 29th July - 29th August at:
Portobello Public Art House, 56 Kings Road, Portobello, Edinburgh, UK, EH15 1DX.
Only 20 mins from Edinburgh City Centre on buses 26 and 15.
Big Things on the Beach is a public art trust in Portobello, a seaside suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was formed by a group of residents in 2003 to explore the potential of the seafront as a site for engagement with public artworks by both emerging and established artists. Since 2004 we have commissioned artists to create substantial temporary artworks, trained ourselves and others in the process of commissioning public artworks through international site visits and guest lectures and successfully raised funding to these ends.
Big Things on the Beach is a Charity Registered in Scotland (Scottish Charity Number: SC 35107)
Image:
'Black Swan', 2010, 13 Fruit Machines, fixings and waterproofing. Portobello Beach, Edinburgh. Commissioned by Big Things on The Beach, Courtesy the artist and Workplace Gallery.
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