Reviews & features: Art Festival
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Craig Coulthard - Forest Pitch
3 Sep 2012
Artist Coulthard creates a full-size football pitch in the Borders as part of the Cultural Olympiad
Craig Coulthard has certainly put the ‘beautiful’ in the beautiful game with Forest Pitch; a full-size football pitch created in the middle of a forest in the Scottish Borders. At the end of August two football matches were played on the pitch, the…
Soviet Grand Designs
30 Aug 2012
Surprising exhibition of art created under suppression
John Barkes, an art dealer and collector based in London, has been buying works by Soviet artists since his 1992 visit to St Petersburg. He has since met more than 400 contemporary artists in the interest of buying their paintings and has assembled…
Ilana Halperin: We Form Geology
30 Aug 2012
Travelling Gallery, various locations around Scotland, Aug-Dec 2012
New York born artist Ilana Halperin collaborates with National Museums Scotland for this travelling show which kicked off on Fri 24 Aug for a three-hour run outside the City Art Centre in Edinurgh, and continues across Scotland throughout the rest of…
Visual artist and filmmaker Katri Walker discusses her career so far
19 Aug 2012
Walker is a fan of Salla Tykkä, Francis Alÿs and being referred to in the third person
What was the first exhibition you went to see? I don’t remember what the first one was but sprinting through the Hermitage in St Petersburg as a teenager with my brother in a valiant yet futile attempt to see as many of the three million plus artworks…
John Bellany at 70
17 Aug 2012
Showcase of familiar images from the Port Seton artist
John Bellany at 70 precedes the major retrospective of the Scottish painter’s work due to be held by the National Galleries of Scotland later this year, and showcases some of his more vibrant, powerful images and compositions that are now familiar…
Jock Mcfadyen: the Ability to Cling
17 Aug 2012
Small but revealing exhibition of paintings and sculptures
Small but revealing exhibition of paintings and sculptures ‘The ability to cling fastidiously to an image is a pointer to the mark of a true artist,’ runs the slogan which gives this exhibition its title on one of the Paisley-born McFadyen’s earlier…
Garage
17 Aug 2012
Off-piste, enjoyable compendium of grassroots art
In a residential garage, a portable TV sits on a rug on the floor, a bouquet of flowers laid down before it. On-screen a collage of scenes from a 1980s TV compendium of schlocky horror play out in Rebecca Key and Melodien’s ‘Sevant! Sevant! Vol 1…
Phenotype Genotype (phg)
17 Aug 2012
Treasure trove of avant garde works
There is no more perfect show to illustrate where Summerhall has come from than this vast display of avant-garde detritus culled from the even vaster archive of the Edinburgh-based Heart Fine Art set-up. From John and Yoko to Gilbert and George to Jake…
Interview: Kevin Harman at 2012 Edinburgh Art Festival
10 Aug 2012
Recent work on 24-hour consumer culture by graduate of Edinburgh College of Art
What was the first exhibition you went to see? It was in the national gallery of Scotland on a school trip. I remember a painting with a woman’s boob on a plate. I distinctly remember that painting as it done a sex thing to me. What was your first…
Art & Language
10 Aug 2012
Intriguing but ultimately impenetrable overview of conceptual movement
Intriguing but ultimately impenetrable overview of conceptual movement Doing little to counteract the idea that conceptual art is a tough sell at the best of times, this sample display of pieces from the collective body behind the Art & Language…
We Are All Ufo-nauts
10 Aug 2012
Subtly curated exploration of the uncanny
The uncanny possibilities of everyday life thread through this group show at compact warehouse gallery Rhubaba, the manipulation of the real through artistic technique and judicious editing creating a sense of the playfully otherworldly. As the title…
Callum Innes: The Regent Bridge
10 Aug 2012
Casting light on an Edinburgh landmark
Callum Innes’ first public art commission is easy to miss at certain times of day. Using a simple strip of lights along the length of each pavement under the Regent Bridge, at night Innes’ installation lights up the walls above and casts eerie light and…
Susan Philipsz: Timeline
9 Aug 2012
Other-worldly chorale from Turner Prize winner
It only takes a few seconds, and the lunchtime Calton Hill day-trippers may not even register the three-note female vocal harmony emanating from Nelson’s monument, and which segues into the faint sound of a cannon being fired for the One O’Clock Gun. In…
Tim Rollins and K.O.S. - The Black Spot
9 Aug 2012
Energetic and honest response to great works of literature
The works by Tim Rollins and K.O.S. in The Black Spot are every bit as powerful as the story behind them; Rollins, working as a teacher in the Bronx in the 80s, developed a collaborative and responsive strategy for making art with his disadvantaged…
Carolee Schneemann: Remains to be Seen
9 Aug 2012
Fascinating retrospective from the iconic artist
Torn-up black-and-white images of a woman taken almost half a century ago are laid out on the floor in criss-crossing strips, as multiples of the woman’s face stare out. This is Carolee Schneemann, performance artist, avant-provocateur and feminist…
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Twilight Remembers
6 Aug 2012
Outstanding overview of work by a remarkable artist
Poet, artist, avant-gardener; the late Ian Hamilton Finlay is best known for Little Sparta, the Pentlands garden he created with his wife, Sue. From this remarkable realm, populated by Greek gods, French revolutionaries, pastoral images and military…
Rachel Mayeri: Primate Cinema - Apes as Family
6 Aug 2012
Dual screen video installation fails to create monkey magic
Los Angeles-based visual artist Rachel Mayeri’s anthropomorphic study of entertainment created for simians, a series entitled Primate Cinema, is perhaps best appreciated for its conceptual design, one of those off the wall ‘somebody had to do it’ ideas…
Dieter Roth: Diaries
6 Aug 2012
Moving and sensitive, if frustrating, insight into Roth’s final days
A wall full of flickering video screens dominates the downstairs space of the Fruitmarket Gallery, labelled and ordered like surveillance monitors. Roth filmed ‘Solo Scenes’ on cameras that he positioned in the most personal spaces of his home and…
Cheer Up! It’s Not the End of the World
6 Aug 2012
Apocalypse images and tormented childhood dreams from Gordon Cheung, Damien Hirst and more
It’s coming. The end of the world, that is. Or at least that’s the case according to those who subscribe to the ancient Mayan theories of disaster-movie-style apocalypse, who reckon it will all be over by Christmas. As the title of this group show…
Artbeat: Jock Mcfadyen
2 Aug 2012
London-based artist at the Edinburgh Art Festival 2012
What was the first exhibition you went to see? My grandfather used to take me to Kelvingrove when I was a boy and I remember red drapes as he showed me the Salvador Dali crucifixion and the blasphemy of the viewer looking down on the head of Christ. He…
David Michalek discusses his life as an artist - interview
29 Jul 2012
The multi-disciplinary artist reflects upon Bill Viola and trading art for baseball cards
What was the first exhibition you went to see? The first two contemporary art exhibitions that I went to see were at the Los Angeles MOCA. The first works we saw upon entering the museum were very large and impressive paintings by Anselm Keifer. But…
Roderick Buchanan: Legacy
29 Jul 2012
Feature-length film installation exploring both sides of the Troubles in Northern Ireland
For a work that brings together the two sides of the same coin that are Irish Republicanism and Northern Irish Loyalism, the black wall that divides the two screens of Roderick Buchanan’s feature-length film installation without comment is a silently…
George Leslie Hunter: A Life in Colour
29 Jul 2012
Comprehensive survey of the work of Rothesay-born colourist
More than 70 paintings and prints by the least known of the four Scottish colourists not only demonstrate the breadth of Hunter’s painting practice and his constantly changing approach and style, but also reveal the influences on the Rothesay-born…
Philip Guston (1913-1980): Late Paintings
29 Jul 2012
Late work by renowned US artist in Scotland for the first time
Continuing its growing tradition of presenting some of the greats of 20th century art in striking surroundings, this festival Inverleith House plays host to Canadian painter Philip Guston, a contemporary of Pollock and De Kooning in 1950s New York. The…
Susan Philipsz, Kevin Harman and Anthony Schrag take art to the streets
28 Jul 2012
The artists are staging outdoor works as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival's Festival Promenade
'I’m checking them out / I’m checking them out / I got it figured out / I got it figured out / There’s good points and bad points / Find a city / Find myself a city to live in.’ (David Byrne / Talking Heads – ‘Cities’) If Edinburgh’s town planners…
