Reviews & features: Edinburgh Art Festival

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

The great global economic gamble, in heavily symbolic form

Take Frances Richardson’s drawing and sculptures (the latter she refers to as ‘walk-in drawings’) literally and it seems the world is falling down around us. Or at least the financial world is, and that might not be too far from the truth. But how…

Gledinbow

Glasgow and Edinburgh reconciled through art?

‘gleDinBow’ is pitched as an exhibition that has paired artists from Edinburgh with partners from Glasgow as a way to explore ‘sibling rivalry’ and attempt to cross perceived artistic boundaries between the two cities. In practise there is little…

5 Questions - Spam the Musical

5 words to describe SPAM the Musical Viral, punk, trojan, fabulous & fucked up. 4 places we might be able to catch it Where you least expect it. Or www.spamthemusical.com, if you’re lazy. 3 other EAF exhibitions you’re looking forward to…

Tracey Emin: 20 Years

Emin thrills… and disappoints

Tracey Emin seems to polarise opinion – just check out the online comments on her column in The Independent. One of Britain’s most recognisable YBA artists, she’s been nominated for the Turner Prize and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, but…

Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the Art of Cover Design

Of human bond-age

It’s strange, considering how conservative a character James Bond is, that his presentation and marketing seems to fall so readily in step with the times. From Sean Connery throughout the smooth, swinging 60s, to the more cartoonishly lurid 70s and…

Ingleby Gallery

All change

Edinburgh’s Ingleby gallery has gradually developed a solid reputation for showing emerging and established contemporary art in a domestic Georgian setting, but their art collection has grown along with their status, prompting directors Richard and…

Interview - Alexander Hamilton

Travels without my camera

It might seem laughably low-tech in a digital age, but the camera-less cyanotype, one of the earliest and simplest forms of photography, still enthrals Edinburgh artist Alexander Hamilton. ‘It’s just two chemicals mixed together and applied to…

The Golden Record - Sounds of Earth

If the truth really is out there, the prospect of aliens landing on a planet populated by posh comedians would be enough to send them zapping back beyond Uranus in double-quick hyper-drive. The comedy aspect is one of the more worrying premises of this…

Richard Wilson

Feats of engineering and derring-do

A man burrows his way out of the back of a black hackney cab that’s still in motion, looking like he’s tunnelled his way out of Wonderland to avoid paying his fare. The same hole-in-the-wall gang appears to have turned the brutalist façade of an office…

Richard Hamilton: Protest Pictures

Incomplete display of anti-establishment works by a British master

While this exhibition gives a flavour of just how iconic the work of pioneering British pop artist Richard Williams has been, particularly in relation to the authority-subverting subtexts at work within them, the impression upon leaving is that only…

Gledinbow

A Tale of Two Cities

Glasgow and Edinburgh: what a pair. Like errant brothers at a wedding, you can bet they’ll be brawling on the dance floor before the end of the night. The roots of this mutual antipathy are too numerous to mention, yet they extend into all aspects of…

Andrew Grassie: Painting as Document

This survey exhibition of recent and new work by Andrew Grassie, his first major solo show in Scotland, exhibits a selection of the artist’s paintings from the past ten years. When first viewed together, this output appears terribly uniform. The…

5 Questions - Chad McCail

5 words to describe your current show: Achingly beautiful, heart-wrenching eye candy. 4 other exhibitions you want to see: The Mike Kelly retrospective in Brussels I missed; a Tony Oursler retrospective, a George Condo show... that’s enough wanting. 3…

Eskimo

Scottish artist partnership Polarcap are into puns, which is why they called the inaugural project at the Gallery at Eskmills Eskimo. There aren’t any actual representatives from the Inuit people among the 14 (mostly Scottish) artists who they…

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

Six different, self-contained installation pieces by hugely acclaimed Canadian artist partnership Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, which run a series of gamuts, taking in culture both high and popular, film, multimedia robotics and…

Edinburgh Art Festival

Street arts

Edinburgh residents are used to a takeover at this time of year. As hoardes of performers, artists, comedians and their assorted entourages set up a whole other city on top of theirs, the festivals can feel divorced from the realities of Edinburgh life.

What is Life?

Scottish sculptors take on biological investigation

Exploring a common interest in plants and scientific enquiry, Inverleith House curator Paul Nesbitt has drawn together works by Scottish sculptors Christine Borland, Graham Fagen and Simon Starling. In a bold and considered move, he’s chosen to eschew…

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

Sculpture and walk-in drawings explore the gambler’s mindset

In rationalising her new exhibition, English artist Frances Richardson finds it best to quote the wisdom of Chico Marx: ‘If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.…

The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: The Renaissance

Treasure trove of Italian masters

You wonder what Prince William was thinking when he switched courses at university – when your Grandma owns art like this, studying Art History must have been a doddle. This exhibition, the first of two from the Royal Collection’s holdings of 16th and…

5 Questions - Joanne Brown

Director of the Edinburgh Art Festival, takes stock of the programme. Five words to describe the Edinburgh Art Festival programme this year: Wide-ranging, exciting, challenging, colourful, fun. Four aspects of the EAF you’re looking forward to: Visiting…

Chad McCail

The well-revered Scottish artist has created a series of new screenprints exclusively for Edinburgh Printmakers. McCail’s deceptively bold, cartoonish graphics mask the social critique at the centre of the work, which focuses on subjects like education…

Golden years - Tracey Emin

Edinburgh International Art Festival

As the leading female light of Britart, Tracey Emin has been revered and rejected in equal measure. Writer and broadcaster Bidisha has a few words of scorn for the detractors and reflects on the already profound legacy she will leave behind It’s been…