Reviews & features: Visual art
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Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage
12 Mar 2013
Tod Machover, the Wooster Group and Oper Frankfurt among the EIF programme highlights
A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with…
Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape
7 Sep 2012
Watercolour landscapes with photorealist sensibilities
Most remembered as the man who arranged the shipping of the Elgin Marbles in his position as artistic retainer to Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, this retrospective of Giovanni Battista Lusieri’s relatively little-remembered 18th and 19th century landscape…
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…
Picasso's Nude Woman is there to stay at Edinburgh airport
8 Aug 2012
Edinburgh Airport reinstates Picasso nude after it was covered due to passenger complaints
Several customers in Edinburgh Airport complained about the poster featuring Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, which was advertising Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – highlight of the on-going…
The Blind
7 Aug 2012
Stunningly powerful outdoors multimedia spectacle
Krakow-based KTO Theatre pulls off a rare feat in combining stunning visual effects with a potent emotional impact in its gripping, wordless show The Blind. Whether through pounding music, imagery that’s by turns shocking and poignantly beautiful, or…
Still Life: An Audience With Henrietta Moraes
7 Aug 2012
Immersive monologue-cum-life-drawing-class
It’s pretty disconcerting being addressed by a naked, middle-aged woman, but you soon get used to it. And when she invites you to draw her body, you might feel self-conscious at first – but as writer and actor Sue MacLaine’s life drawing-cum-monologue…
Watch it!
7 Aug 2012
Small-screen addiction writ large with dance, theatre and visual trickery
Watching too much television is bad for you. This is not a new piece of information, the psychology behind why has been well documented. But if people only created shows about new subject matters, there’d be a lot of empty stages, so we can’t really…
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…
