Nathan Coley: The Future Is Inside Us, It’s Not Somewhere Else

Born in Scotland in 1967, Nathan Coley is an artist interested in the idea of public space, and the many meanings architecture can unfold. Using the readymade as a starting point, Coley frequently turns the specific into the general, testing its function as a form of social representation.
In “The Future Is Inside Us, It’s Not Somewhere Else” Coley takes inspiration from the 19th-century hand-printed scenic wallpaper “Les Vues de L’Amérique du Nord” (Views of North America), a hand-printed 15 metre-long design offering a panoramic view of a new world as imagined from the old world of Europe, first produced by French printers Zuber & Cie in 1834. Coley’s new works consist of a series of large-scale custom-made lightboxes which combine original wallpaper with short texts selected by the artist.