Reviews & features: Rosalie Doubal
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Mystics or Rationalists?
17 Aug 2011
Elegant conceptual works bend associations of the ordinary
Stealing the show, Susan Hiller’s new levitation works are exemplary of the conceit at the heart of this group exhibition. Having infused conceptual and minimalist strategies with the influence of psychoanalysis and pop culture since the late 1960s…
Ben Brailsford
16 Aug 2011
Self-confessed geek let down by repetitive material
A bungling monologue this from a self-confessed geek and bassoonist, detailing his misfortune at being wrongly accused of aggravated trespass during the recent anti-cuts protests in London. His material is repetitive and the searing insignificance of…
Matthew Highton's Shadowed Vagary
16 Aug 2011
Warm, intelligent and beautifully written tall tale
This warm, intelligent and beautifully written tall tale winds its way from an office infatuation to an apocalyptical climax featuring a fembot with an allergy to Nando’s Peri-Peri sauce, Mickey Rourke’s magic peacock and an evil Patrick Moore. Sweet…
The Two Wrongies
14 Aug 2011
Confused and confusing naked double-act
It’s unclear where the poorly concealed punches in this crude cabaret of physical comedy are aimed. From five minutes into their performance, the female double-act remains in various states of undress, with predictable simulations of sex and naked…
Norman McBeath & Robert Crawford: Body Bags / Simonides
11 Aug 2011
Mournful collaboration between photographer and poet
Scots translations of epitaphs by the ancient Greek poet Simonides, coupled with black and white photographs, adorn the high-rising walls of two lofty Edinburgh College of Art studios. Joined by tall vases of white lilies, classical casts from the…
Interview: US artist Ingrid Calame
3 Aug 2011
Transferring transfers marks and cracks from ground outside to gallery walls
‘This is it!’ exclaims US artist Ingrid Calame, waving towards a radiant tabletop awash with transparent sacks of bright pigments, a sea of reds, pinks, blues and greens. She’s referring to a new drawing based on tracings plucked from the cement…
David O’Doherty
23 Aug 2010
Mild-mannered Dublin comic returns with less song and more chat
The Casio keyboard remains but this year the mild-mannered Dublin comic returns with less song and more chat. And also more book reading, mainly from his recent publication 100 Facts About Pandas. Bung in a kaleidoscopic range of observational indie…
Carey Marx
22 Aug 2010
Debunking some myths with craft and guile
A veteran Pontin’s bluecoat recounting tales of his 19-year-old magician-self, Carey Marx’ fresh and well-judged set focuses on debunking the myths of phony spoon-bending, séance-leading practitioners. Hitting a surprising tone from the off-set, his…
Plan B
19 Aug 2010
Nuanced and arresting marriage of text and image
One of the most immediately arresting images of the Edinburgh Art Festival, photographer Norman McBeath’s black and white of a sculpture of Apollo swathed in smothering polythene, stands to represent a unique collaboration between this artist and…
Philip Braham: Falling Shadows In Arcadia
19 Aug 2010
Insensitively curated exhibition pits the fragility of human life against the enduring landscape
This exhibition of photographic prints by the Royal Scottish Academy’s Morton Award winner 2009 comprises two rather different series’. The most prominent pictures are of black and white scenes – forests, bodies of water, vacant bridges – that have been…
Max and Iván
18 Aug 2010
High energy, fast-paced sketches
This youthful double act presents a near-universal gung-ho set of high energy, fast-paced sketches, raucously covering everything from re-imaginings of blockbusters to advert appeals for a charity for models with eating disorders (where the only…
Jollie
16 Aug 2010
Charmingly silly piece of musical comedy
Earnest and classy nautical storytelling from two consummate performers is strengthened by an evidently seasoned friendship and although the duo’s on-stage bickers begin to drag, this is a charmingly silly piece of musical comedy. Accordion, clarinet…
Matt Tiller
16 Aug 2010
Uninspired musical comedy
This uninspired musical comedy from the lovely but rather outmoded Matt Tiller centres upon life’s little blips in social equilibrium: the toilet walk-in, the beach erection and saying the wrong thing after sex. This is fairly common material performed…
Shirley and Shirley
12 Aug 2010
Dark twists on familiar sketch topics
With fantastic energy and physical ability, strong, simple ideas and a remarkable on-stage chemistry, sketch show duo Shirley & Shirley are surely ones to watch. Comparisons to Smack the Pony are unavoidable but by no means disparaging, and while there…
Hito Steyerl: In Free Fall
11 Aug 2010
Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis
A theoretician, artist and filmmaker interested in documentary strategies in contemporary art, Hito Steyerl’s work focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, specifically the status of images as they circulate globally. Steyerl is a…
Joan Mitchell
11 Aug 2010
Arresting display of abstract paintings
Inverleith House really is a special place. An 18th century mansion reserved entirely for the display of art, its beautifully proportioned light-filled rooms enjoy unmatched views of rolling lawns and botanicals. The works that are exhibited within its…
Dave Hill
11 Aug 2010
Navigates a fine path between the crass and the classy
US comic Hill adopts a shy frat boy persona to chronicle the wide-eyed travels of an unsuccessful rock band of thirtysomethings in Japan. Endearingly conveying the marvel of garage band ambition, Hill’s relentless desire to rock provides a solid basis…
Jeremy Lion
9 Aug 2010
Soused kids entertainer goes green
Ruddy-faced Jeremy Lion uses the fertile format of the children’s educational play to bind an alcoholic slapstick to lyrical ditties detailing the dangers of global warming. It’s a finely tailored package of physical, musical and cynical gags that’s at…
Iran do Espírito Santo
5 Aug 2010
Brazilian artist comes to the Ingleby Gallery presenting visual puns
Internationally acclaimed Brazilian artist Espírito Santo here presents visual puns in the form of beautiful mirrored and crystal sculptures, and a wall painting that alternately produces an instinctive and immersive effect. This is a formula that not…
Profusion of painting at 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival
4 Aug 2010
Richard Wright, Joan Mitchell and Julie Roberts head up painting programme
Painting has inspired some epic declarations over the years. In the 1960s Donald Judd declared the medium dead. In 2005 Young British Artist Damien Hirst advised people that they were more important than paintings. And this year, in light of the…
Artist Martin Creed presents dance piece Ballet Work No.1020
3 Aug 2010
Turner Prize-winning visual artist gets to the pointe at Fringe
Through with the usual art materials – paper, paint, bronze (and in this instance vomit, excrement and light bulbs) – Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed has turned his hand to the human body. Lauded for his Work No. 850 (2008), in which athletes…
Edinburgh Art Festival surrealist exhibition Another World leaves potential unfulfilled
27 Jul 2010
Impressive, if surprisingly straightforward, collection of surrealist works
For a source so rich in departures for radical flights of enquiry, this presentation of surrealist paintings, objects, journals and sculptures is alarmingly straightforward. By marrying a host of mesmerising works by the likes of Dali and Magritte to a…
Martin Creed: Down Over Up - Edinburgh Art Festival
15 Jul 2010
The Turner Prize winner on his Festival work
Renaissance Man Martin Creed is on the Fringe and at the Book Festival as well as stirring up the art world this August. Rosalie Doubal hears from an artist who wants to fully explore the process of living
Dan Atkinson: Death by One Thousand Pricks
1 Sep 2009
Compelling and entertaining thesis on the current state of Britain
Dan Atkinson is sick of pretending. He's through with being nice, kaput with repressing his desires, and done with right-wing 'pricks' that moan and whine on radio call-ins. Charmingly presenting the stage as a realm in which the truth runs free, and…
Scottish Paintings: Old Masters to Contemporary
26 Aug 2009
Great works undermined by staid and debilitating presentation
This closed and muted historical survey covers a time span of around 400 years and reaches from the dark, still-life ages of William Gow Ferguson in 1632, to the rarely exciting contemporary abstract paintings of Callum Innes. Chronicling Scottish…
