Nathan Coley’s work develops out of an intense scrutiny of a specific building or situation. During the past year he has made a number of sculptures based on buildings which have dramatically changed in function or which embody a violent clash of interests – respectable homes to squat, garage to drug den. Dollhouse in scale, these subversive objects playfully defy categorisation. Are they sculptures or architectural models? Are they monuments to architectural developments or memorials to loss – symbols of reversed fortunes? I Don’t Have Another Land is the newest work in this vein, continuing Coley’s interest in oppositional change within the context of Manchester. The work is based on the old Marks & Spencer’s building destroyed as a result of the IRA bomb damage. In researching and re-presenting this lost building, Coley gives new consideration to a structure erased from urban memory by the rush of new plans. To reinforce the significance of the building, this scaled down version sports a blackened sheen and is accompanied by a phrase taken from a piece of graffiti found on a wall in the city of Jerusalem. The result is a tense and mischievously evasive object, one that invites us to interpret its function, but ultimately dodges a single analysis.

From the exhibition catalogue ‘Fabrications’, Cube Gallery, Manchester 2002