Extracts of a conversation between artists Mike Nelson and Simon Patterson and art historian, lecturer and writer Patricia Bickers, from the opening of Print the Legend: The Myth of the West, at Fruitmarket in 2008.

British artist Mike Nelson is known for immersive, absorbing installations assembled from the detritus of everyday lives. Often referencing works of literature or countercultural or fringe political movements, his work transforms the spaces it inhabits.

This summer Mike is taking over Fruitmarket with his new show Humpty Dumpty/ a transient history of Mardin earthworks / low rise, which opens on 27th June 2025 and runs until early October.

In 2008 Mike was part of the group exhibition Print the Legend at Fruitmarket, alongside artists including Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Cornelia Parker and Simon Patterson. Curated by Patricia Bickers, Print the Legend was a critical response to the western and the myth of the west, exploring themes such as narrative, conflict, fiction and truth, justice and injustice, frontiers and desire.

Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.

Mike Nelson’s piece, Untitled No.22 (High Plains Drifter) (1993/2001/2008), involved spray painting one of our fire escapes and the entire contents of a store cupboard with several coats of red paint to create a disorientating, breath-taking new environment.

This was a reference to the film High Plains Drifter, but also painting, and in particular the work of the artist Niele Toroni, whose signature style is the measured repetition of a single brushstroke. In High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood’s character takes revenge on the citizens of Lago, getting them to paint their own town red, transforming it into a living hell.

Simon Patterson’s wall drawing, Western: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1997), references the concept of the frame and horizon, portraying a metaphorical moral landscape through the representation of the Kodak™ Gray Scale, an exposure-testing format used in photography. The names of the three main actors in the film, Lee Marvin (who plays the outlaw Liberty Valance), John Wayne (the gunfighter) and James Stewart (the lawyer), are painted in black, grey and white, respectively, to denote their relative ethics, and good and bad actions –the equivalent of the black hat and the white hat in early westerns.

A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.

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