Edinburgh Art Festival 2014 interview: The Honourable Kevin Harman

• Rhona Taylor
• 29 July 2014

This article is from 2014

'I didn’t like the name Kevin, so I had to come up with something that distracted from it'

Where did the ‘Honourable’ title come from?
I didn’t like the name Kevin, so I had to come up with something that distracted from it. ‘Honourable’ comes from speaking to a lawyer friend of mine and having a laugh about some of his clients – one guy kept writing to everybody as the Honourable, and using a load of other titles, which I just loved. But I honour what I say I’m going to do so I guess I kind of am. I’m going to start feeding it outside of the art world as well and see how far I get – until someone says, ‘No you can’t’.

What can you tell us about your Edinburgh Art Festival show?
I’ve been working on four or five projects – they require a degree of covert delivery so I can’t say too much. Once the space is open in August, folk will come round for the open studio and they’ll be able to discuss the work and have an input into how the projects go ahead. I’ll be hosting a few events after hours as well with an invited audience to be part of the project I’m building in the studio at the moment. We’ll pick the most interesting people who come to the studio, and I’ll invite them back for this larger event on two evenings a week, which should be quite funky.

What are you looking forward to seeing during the festival?
This year there’s GENERATION, so there’s absolute art overload and maybe a bit of the spectacle has been taken off the festival. But personally I’m looking forward to seeing Craig Coulthard’s work at Trinity Apse, and the Jim Lambie show at the Fruitmarket. I helped put one of his floors down when I was a nipper at art college – really inspirational. There’s so much going on in Scottish art right now – there’s definitely something there.

Old Ambulance Depot, 1–31 Aug (Wed, Fri & Sun), noon–4pm, free.