In Memory takes the form of a small, private cemetery, placed within a poured concrete enclosure. The names with which the gravestones had been inscribed have been blanked out by the artist to create an unsettling erasure.

For In Memory, Nathan Coley acquired gravestones, that for various reasons had been removed from their former sites, and had the names with which they had been inscribed blanked out. A traditional sculptural gesture – that of carving – here joined an iconoclastic act and an appropriation, in the tradition of Duchamp’s readymades.

The result is a set of unsettled and unsettling objects, in which the scoring out of a name at once suggests the erasure wrought by death itself and draws particular attention to precisely what is generic or cultural in private monuments – namely those forms of address or dedication that frame mourning.

In Memory creates a space and place, apart from its surroundings, giving us a space to reflect on what separates the living and the dead, and on how we demarcate that separation. In addition to In Memory, Jupiter Artland’s permanent collection includes another artwork by Coley titled You Imagine What You Desire.

“In Memory is not about me, it’s about you. The less I say about it, the more chance it has to shift and move. Monuments and graveyards are, of course, the most legitimate form of public art. They are objects that act as substitutes for people now gone, active things symbolising the absence of a form. I think of In Memory as an artwork for Bonnington House, more than for the current family living there. Most cultures bury their dead, and many country estates have graveyards. It seemed to me that there was a moment missing from the woods, so I thought about building an enclosure that allowed you to sit still for a bit, to daydream a little and to contemplate your lot.”

Nathan Coley