About this artwork
This dramatic and atmospheric installation incorporates various sculptural elements, which together create a disconcerting, yet somehow familiar, environment. The vocabulary that Boyce has employed is derived from his discovery of a photograph of the concrete trees designed by the Martel brothers for the Art Deco exhibition held in Paris in 1925. According to Boyce these trees “represent a perfect collapse of architecture and nature”. From them he extracted a grid template that has since become a basis for all aspects of his practice. Here, the combination of a free-standing, coloured climbing frame, space-age phone-booths, suspended lighting and his own ‘concrete’ trees, creates a modernist theatre-set that transforms the gallery environment into a sinister playground on a dark night.
Updated before 2020
see media-
artist:Martin Boyce (born 1967) Scottish
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title:Electric Trees and Telephone Booth Conversations
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date created:2006
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materials:Mixed media installation
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measurements:Variable dimensions
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 2008
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accession number:GMA 5022
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gallery:
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subject:
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glossary:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Martin Boyce
Martin Boyce
Boyce was born in Hamilton, Scotland and studied environmental art at Glasgow School of Art from 1987 to 1990, before completing an MFA in 1997. He is interested in the ideals of modern design and architecture and how these have changed over time. While acknowledging the revolutionary ideas behind...