Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

Showing for the first time in Scotland, Tim Rollins and K.O.S. present an exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery including new work and a series of Art and Knowledge Workshops. Coming to Edinburgh direct from the first Frieze New York, the collective's literary and music inspired work continues to make waves within contemporary art. Surveying their work at Frieze, Simon Schama commented that, "combining instruction in reading and writing with collaborative art-making has resulted in some work of spectacular radiance as well as social energy".

The exhibition title, The Black Spot, is taken from Stevenson's Treasure Island, the classic adventure story that has inspired a new work for Talbot Rice. The Black Spot is a summons to audiences to reinvigorate a belief in the power of art to change lives.


Leading up to the opening of The Black Spot, 24 local young people participated in two intensive workshops at Talbot Rice Gallery with Tim Rollins and K.O.S. members Angel Abreu, Rick Savinon and Eric Fernandez.

During the sessions the group created 69 Studies for On the Origin of Species (after Charles Darwin) and The Black Spot (after Robert Louis Stevenson).

Tyrus Clutter notes that "Eleanor Heartney in an essay included in Tim Rollins and K.O.S: A History considers the religious background of Tim, his return to the church in 1990s, and the overwhelmingly Catholic faith of the artists in K.O.S. ... Heartney acknowledges associations to the religious in some of the most well known works of Rollins and K.O.S. Works based on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man exhibit an enormous IM across pages from the book. The letters evoke several things aside from the book’s title. Dr. King famously stated “I am a Man,” but the name/phrase “I AM” is also the name of the God of the Jews, as given to Moses. It is the complex readings that make the work intriguing."

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Candi Staton - His Hands.