Apple Ser­vice Pro­vider, 2018

Sculp­ture and Per­form­ance com­mis­sioned by Haus­er & Wirth Somer­set for the exhib­i­tion ​‘The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind’, cur­ated by Adam Sutherland.

Anchorhold is a struc­ture com­mis­sioned by Grizedale Arts and designed by Suth­er­land Hus­sey Architects.

Coates has worked with Grizedale Arts on pre­vi­ous occa­sions to install and activ­ate the Anchorhold struc­ture. For this exhib­i­tion, Coates uses the Anchorhold struc­ture as an apple store. The struc­ture holds two people with­in it and in the course of the show Coates holds a series of one-on-one con­sulta­tions with mem­bers of the pub­lic. The stored apples are avail­able for vis­it­ors to eat.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic bought a ques­tion to the con­sulta­tion. Coates answered these ques­tions exclus­ively using his know­ledge and exper­i­ence of apples as a basis for rel­ev­ant metaphor. 

The exhib­i­tion explored the con­tra­dict­ory nature of society’s rela­tion­ship to the rur­al. It fea­tured over 100 inter­na­tion­al artists work­ing from the 1500s to the present day, includ­ing Paul McCarthy, Beat­rix Pot­ter, Carsten Höller, Laure Prouvost, Wil­li­am Hol­man Hunt, Samuel Palmer, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fernando Gar­cía-Dory, Mark Dion, Roni Horn, Aaron Angell and Mark Wallinger.

Pho­to­graphs of Install­a­tion views: ​‘The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind’ Haus­er & Wirth Somer­set, 20 Janu­ary – 7 May 2018, Cour­tesy of Haus­er & Wirth.

Pho­to­graphy by Ken Adlard