Nathan Coley Reluctantly Accepts to Remake Installation Destroyed at Gallery of Modern Art

Nathan Coley's The Lamp of Sacrifice
Photo via: Generation Arts Scotland

Scottish artist Nathan Coley will remake his work The Lamp of Sacrifice (2004), which was destroyed last month while on display at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in Glasgow, as part of the touring exhibition “Generation: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland,” Herald Scotland reports.

More than 60 percent of the piece, formed by 286 cardboard maquettes of churches and other places of worship in Edinburgh, was damaged beyond repair by water last January. The organization that manages the gallery, Glasgow Life, explained that a failure with a humidification plant was responsible for the incident, and issued a public apology.

But that doesn’t seem to be enough for the 2007 Turner Prize nominee, who has voiced his discomfort at the situation.”I feel massively disappointed that the work has been damaged beyond repair,” Coley said. “Do Glasgow Life need to take responsibility? Absolutely. They borrowed an artwork from the National Collection and while in their care it was destroyed.”

Coley has also revealed that he is not looking forward to remaking the intricate artwork: “It was a huge sacrifice of time and energy when I first made it for The Fruitmarket Gallery 11 years ago,” he lamented. “I’ve reluctantly said yes, that I will fabricate the whole work again. Spending six months re-making something that you’ve already made, is a truly perverse way to spend your time,” he added.

“We are deeply saddened by the damage to Nathan Coley’s Lamp of Sacrifice,” Fiona Bradley, director of The Fruitmarket Gallery, said. “The labor of making the work is an explicit part of its meaning (the sacrifice of the title), so its re-making is particularly poignant,” she added.


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