Art Festival

Golden years - Tracey Emin

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

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…

Naked Portrait

1 Aug 2007

In contrast with the ‘nude’ figure in western art history, the naked portrait still manages to present a sometimes shocking and raw view of the sitter’s personality that reaches beyond their public façade.

Turning point - Richard Wilson

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

Installation artist Richard Wilson is a true pioneer whether he’s experimenting with drawing, film or sculpture. Rosie Lesso hears from the man about how he loves to defy preconceptions British artist Richard Wilson has an uncanny ability to distort…

David Mach: Precious Light

Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition of biblical proportions by Fife-born artist

5 Aug 2011

Without doubt, Methil-born artist David Mach’s work ‘Golgotha’ will stand out as the defining image from the artistic strand of this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Three enormous figures of threaded steel nailed to metallic crosses, which take up the entire…

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields and Photogenic Drawings

Breathtaking exploration of both photography and science

25 Aug 2011

To say that Sugimoto's contribution to the Edinburgh International Festival is striking would be an understatement. This is the first time these works have been displayed in Europe. The Japanese photography pioneer’s huge analogue 'Lightning Fields…

Bring me sunshine - Gilbert and George at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

A look at the history of the art duo

15 Jul 2010

Dubbed the Morecambe and Wise of modern art, Gilbert and George have straddled the decades, their eccentric veil never dropping for a second. Bidisha considers the pair who sidestepped misogyny to focus on the beauty of flawed males

Andrew Grassie

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

There promises to be a lot of visitors doing a double-take in front of Andrew Grassie’s paintings at Edinburgh University’s Talbot Rice Gallery this summer. While a fleeting glance might suggest that the images are photographs, Grassie actually…

Picasso on Paper

Edinburgh International Art Festival

19 Jul 2007

Alexander Kennedy explores the enduring mass appeal of Pablo Picasso as two major new exhibitions of the great 20th century artist’s work come to Edinburgh

Hayashi Takeshi: Haku-u (White Rain)

Impressive hand-carved sculptures

3 Aug 2011

Once upon a time, Japanese artist Hayashi Takeshi looked out over a paddy field in the rain, the texture of the water’s surface as each inverted wet plop rose and fell clearly ingraining itself on his memory. With the primary and titular work on display…

Precious Light - David Mach interview

Artist's first major Scottish exhibition in years at Edinburgh Art Festival 2011

6 Jul 2011

It’s just after 9am in Forest Hill in South London. The denizens of this leafy area have walked their children to school and boarded their commuter trains. In David Mach’s messy but unfussy two-floored studio, two handfuls of assistants and technicians…

Picture perfect

1 Aug 2007

From international stars like Andy Warhol and Picasso to Turner Prize winners and home grown talent, Alexander Kennedy finds rich pickings in the Edinburgh Art Festival

Hitlist: Festival Art

1 Aug 2007

The best exhibitions in the Edinburgh Festival

Tony Cragg

Stunning showcase of sculptor’s poetic, monolithic output

3 Aug 2011

From Scouse lab technician to director of Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Cragg’s prolific artistic journey has been one of inspiration and rejection, absorption and a will to move beyond. While the works of Max Ernst, Richard Long, Joseph Beuys and Henry…

Impressionist Gardens

A remarkable exhibition of iconic, influential works at The National Galleries

5 Aug 2010

The National Galleries of Scotland’s ambitious exhibition brings together around 100 paintings focusing on the garden as subject for impressionist painters: remarkably the first show of its kind to have been held anywhere in the world. It’s hard to…

Tea-leafs ahoy!

21 Aug 2008

Rumours abound that a Tracey Emin polaroid was pinched from the Gilded Balloon Loft Bar, last week. The untitled display of ten self-portraits, consisting of enlarged Polaroids of the artist were hung up by pieces of velcro in the bar. Now only nine…

Nathan Coley

Edinburgh International Art Festival

19 Jul 2007

‘It’s a big sculpture talking about the invisibility of things, and I think that’s beautiful,’ says Nathan Coley. He is talking about his 2006 work ‘There Will Be No Miracles Here’, a six-metre high structure with the title phrase illuminated across…

Dürer’s Fame

Tribute to the German woodcut and engravings master Albrecht Durer

21 Jul 2011

German handball star Pascal Hens gazes out from a black-and-white poster, his torso naked, gaze serious, his pose one of self-deification. This is enhanced further by a tattoo on his stomach of two disembodied hands clasped together as if in prayer.

Edward Weston: Life Work and William Wegman: Family Combinations

A pair of fascinating photography exhibitions for the price of one

12 Aug 2010

These two fascinating exhibitions by two very different photographers challenge John Steinbeck’s belief that cameras should be disparaged because ‘they are so much more sure than I am about everything.’ Weston was the natural, a pioneer and a comrade…

Scottish Paintings: Old Masters to Contemporary

Great works undermined by staid and debilitating presentation

26 Aug 2009

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…

Mystics or Rationalists?

Elegant conceptual works bend associations of the ordinary

17 Aug 2011

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…

Interview: Jeremy Millar on exhibition Mystics or Rationalists?

Artist discusses his contribution to Ingleby Edinburgh Art Festival show

10 Aug 2011

How far do you agree with Sol LeWitt’s comment that ‘conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists’? I think I’d tend to agree: they’re certainly rather more mystics than rationalists. Art isn’t rational, but it can be mystical. What is…

Tamsyn Challenger: 400 Women

Stunning artistic memorial to victims of gender violence

8 Aug 2011

What unites the collection of heterogeneous portraits in 400 Women is the fate of each subject depicted. All are the victims of rape, abduction and murder, devastating crimes which have taken place on the Mexican border region of Ciudad Juàrez. In…

Anton Henning: Interieur No. 493

Curious and bemusing conceptual art salon at 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival

5 Aug 2011

If, as critic and writer Cyril Connolly once noted, ‘vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life’ German artist Anton Henning might just have halitosis. Henning’s first solo show in Scotland is just about as curious and bemusing an exhibition as you…

Interview: US artist Ingrid Calame

Transferring transfers marks and cracks from ground outside to gallery walls

3 Aug 2011

‘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…

Elizabeth Blackadder

Brilliant retrospective of work by one of Scotland’s major artists

3 Aug 2011

Elizabeth Blackadder is a Dame, a Royal Academician and arguably Scotland’s most popular female painter and printmaker. A major retrospective of her work at Scotland’s biggest gallery space was only ever going to draw sighs of resignation from art snobs…