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.

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…

Best of the rest - Edinburgh Art Festival

Edinburgh International Art Festival

22 Jul 2008

Richard Hamilton One of the key figures of British Pop Art brings us Protest Pictures, a selection of paintings, installations and collages examining his often damning portrayal of politics, movements and leaders. Inverleith House, Inverleith…

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…

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…

John Byrne: Moonlight and Music

Major exhibition of works by much-loved Scottish artist

17 Aug 2011

So recent are some of the pieces in this show – timed to coincide with the launch of a biography of the artist by Lund Humphries – that self-portrait ‘Chop Suey’ and Byrne’s children’s book Donald & Benoit: A Story of a Cat and a Boy arrived close to…

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…

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…

Edinburgh Art Festival 2011 highlights

David Mach, Tamsyn Challenger and Anish Kapoor among picks

1 Jul 2011

David Mach. Explosive and daring exhibition of large-scale collage and sculpture works inspired by and confronting the narratives of the Bible on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the highly influential King James version. 400 Women. A…

Nigel Peake: Making Ends Meet

14 Aug 2009

Schop, the new gallery initiative from Oliver Chapman architects, which exhibits artists steeped in architecture and the built environment, showcases the work of Irish-born artist Nigel Peake for its first EAF exhibition. Peake’s drawings and prints…

The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: The Renaissance

Treasure trove of Italian masters

31 Jul 2008

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…

Atsuo Okamoto: Faraway Mountain

A strong sense of both exploration and play

18 Aug 2010

Walking among Atsuo Okamoto’s granite sculpture feels rather like exploring a prehistoric puzzle – 12 pillars, erupting from the ground, cracked and split into pieces then carefully put back together. The Japanese sculptor’s first solo show in the…

Julie Roberts: Child

Honest and compelling exploration of childhood

11 Aug 2010

Julie Roberts’ new body of work takes the subject of childhood and explores the displacement of children in the mid 20th century. Her paintings do not make use of universal images; instead they are the result of in-depth research and working through…

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…

Milestone

Provocative exhibition accompanying a live stone-carving project

6 Aug 2009

Entering the quad of the Edinburgh College of Art feels a bit like discovering yet another ill-placed tram construction site. The air is full of the drone of power tools, and dust clouds settle in your hair and mouth. Milestone is an unconventional…

Interview: John Byrne

Painter and playwright at 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival

24 Aug 2011

What came first – the art or the writing? It must have been the drawing and the art, because my mother used to tell people that I was drawing in my pram. We have to take her word for it – she was a very honest woman. Do you hold writing and art in…

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…

Hitlist: Visual art

Our pick of visual art for the week

20 Aug 2009

Scottish Paintings: Old Masters to Contemporary. Milestone, The Creative World of Alan Davie, Jane and Louis Wilson: Unfolding the Aryan Papers, The Enlightenments, The Discovery of Spain, Eva Hesse: Studiowork

Hugh Brady: 39

Thought-provoking installation art

21 Aug 2008

The venue for this exhibition is Brady’s studio: a converted stable, which visually correlates to the photographer’s studio in Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic 1960s film Blow Up. From the starting point of the 39 on the exterior door, this is a…

The Golden Record - Sounds of Earth

7 Aug 2008

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…

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

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

31 Jul 2008

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.…

Hitlist: Festival Art

1 Aug 2007

The best exhibitions in the Edinburgh Festival

5 Questions - John Stezaker

1 Aug 2007

John Stezaker, who creates collages from images found in books, magazines and postcards, gives a brief insight into his Festival show

Carmen Sylva

Established artists take on a new and exciting identity

11 Aug 2011

A procession of odd assemblages punctuates the centre of Sierra Metro’s exhibition space. They are Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff’s latest artistic response to Peles, a late 18th Century Romanian castle that has inspired their practice for over six…

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…

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…

The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein

Compendium of works inspired by the Renaissance innovator

3 Aug 2011

There’s something of an inky-fingered Dürer overload in the ‘burgh just now. Following on from Dürer’s Fame over at the National Galleries, this 16th century compendium of more than 100 works uses his output as a springboard for the burgeoning of…

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…

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.

Artist Martin Creed replaces Edinburgh steps with marble from around world

The Turner Prize winner transforms the Scotsman Steps

6 Jul 2011

Now in its eighth year, the Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) has done wonders in raising the profile of the capital's rich assortment of galleries while showcasing an eye-watering array of works by international artists. No stranger to Edinburgh, Turner…

Amnesty International Urban Art Exhibition

Syrkus, Rekor, Derm, Conzo, Mark Lyken and Elph

20 Aug 2010

Urban art created onsite at a live event at the start of the festival by Syrkus, Rekor, Derm, Conzo, Mark Lyken and Elph as part of Amnesty’s festival-wide campaign to highlight the need for freedom of expression all around the world. C soco Urban…

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…

30 top shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010

The List's pick of the Edinburgh Festival programme

23 Jul 2010

From Turner Prize-winning Martin Creed and New York theatre experimentalists The Wooster Group to former wild child Storm Large and promising newcomer Jonny Sweet, this is The List's pick of August’s entertainment.

Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth at Edinburgh Art Festival

Paul Dale finds out more about their Festival installation

15 Jul 2010

Following a rich tradition of surveillance art, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth’s festival show aims to turn Edinburgh into a city under observation. Paul Dale peers through their lens

John Bellany’s: A Celtic Voyage

Cramped but impressive selection of works by Scottish artist

24 Aug 2009

Scottish painter John Bellany’s East Coast hometown of Port Seton, a small seafaring community where fishing was a way of life and Calvinism blew fear through the streets, informs the artist’s oeuvre. Fish, gannets, swans, playing cards and boats…

Rough Cut Nation

Graffiti warriors v neo-Gothic architecture

18 Aug 2009

‘No one notices your pointless actions’, read the letters cut out of the floor. That’s not entirely true nowadays. Graffiti culture has entered the mainstream art world. Largely due to Banksy, art that was once firmly associated with lawless…

The Creative World of Alan Davie

Remarkable mix of the dark and the sublime from much-loved Scottish artist

8 Aug 2009

Saxophonist and journeyman translucent Alan Davie is surely one of Scotland’s greatest living artists. At almost 90 years old it’s remarkable to think that this is the first exhibition of his work to embrace the breadth of his output in painting…

The Discovery of Spain

Fascinating exhibition of British and Spanish art demands a long look

5 Aug 2009

Besides proffering a coloured selection of chapters from an intriguing art historical narrative, this major exhibition presents some seriously affecting works of art. Didacticism aside, simply gazing at these terrifically moving paintings – Goyas, El…

Edinburgh Art Festival

Street arts

31 Jul 2008

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.

David Batchelor

16 Aug 2007

5 words to describe your show this year Not dark, not heavy, not deep, not tragic, not sublime. 4 exhibitions you really want to see at the Art Festival Lygia Clark, Eva Hesse, Hanna Hoch, Mira Schendel. 3 things you love about the Art…

David Batchelor

Edinburgh International Art Festival

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh International Art Festival Colour in David Batchelor thinks we live in a culture that’s scared of bright and vivid hues. That’s why he’s filling his own artistic world with waves of chromatic pleasure. Nick Barley looks at his work and…

Richard Demarco and Joseph Beuys

An art world friendship under a Scottish sky

17 Aug 2011

A single rose can make a garden; a single friend can make a world. Writer, artist and philosopher Richard Demarco’s friendship with the humanistic artist Joseph Beuys was something special. These two passionate, occasionally obtuse men were drawn to…

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…

Katri Walker: North West

Intriguing exploration of Scottish/Wild West links

8 Aug 2011

This triptych of work by Edinburgh-born artist Katri Walker recasts the landscape of Scotland as the wilderness of the American old west, quite literally in the case of the titular central work. Projected over three connected screens, the rocky cliffs…

Ingrid Calame

Water water everywhere with only a doodle to drink

5 Aug 2011

A river runs through Ingrid Calame’s work. But this river has been drained and all that remains are detritus and old stains. Somewhere between Google Earth screen grabs, weighty childhood nature books with their own illustrative key codes and fey…

Lineage: Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport and Julian Opie

Edinburgh Art Festival 2010 - Printmaking, but not as we know it

5 Aug 2011

Drip, drip, drip go the variations on a theme that form the quartet of works culled from Ian Davenport’s ‘Etched Puddle’ series, in which assorted rainbow-arrayed, candy-striped, multi-coloured streams trickle down into a similarly hued liquid carpet at…

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…

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…

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…

400 Women - Tamsyn Challenger interview

Edinburgh Art Festival 2011 show inspired by tragic events

6 Jul 2011

For the last couple of decades of least, the gallery-centred world of contemporary art has been a largely apolitical space, with the popularity of conceptual and often oblique work tending to overshadow that of artists engaging with or responding…

Why Edinburgh remains unrivalled as a festival city

A huge number and variety of festivals take place each year

16 Feb 2011

In 1961, a theatre director made a proposal. It was his opinion that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was getting too big. It would be much better, he said, ‘if only ten halls were licensed’. Nobody listened. Had the director been able to travel…

Ian Reddie: Dirt, Glue, Gluedust

22 Aug 2010

The Edinburgh-based artist presents mixed media paintings, screen prints and digital art evoking a primordial world of desert and rock. Art’s Complex, 661 1924, until 5 Sep (not Mon/Tue), free.

Will Self: ‘The Last Refuge of Greatness’

20 Aug 2010

As part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, everyone’s favourite funny-looking writer, satirist, aesthete and husband of Deborah Orr discusses his lifelong fascination with scale, and investigates the way in which changes in scale influence artistic…

Barbara Rae and Matthew Draper

Contrasting Landscapes, Painterly Abstractions

20 Aug 2010

Two distinct and individual responses to contemporary landscape painting from the two Scottish artists. Open Eye Gallery, 557 1020, until 31 Aug (not Sun), free.

Plan B

Nuanced and arresting marriage of text and image

19 Aug 2010

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

Insensitively curated exhibition pits the fragility of human life against the enduring landscape

19 Aug 2010

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…

EAF host first UK solo show by Iran do Espírito Santo

Brazilian-born artist exhibits at Edinburgh's Ingleby Gallery

18 Aug 2010

The name Iran do Espírito Santo may not be a household word on these shores, but brace yourselves, the Brazilian-born artist is about to take the Edinburgh Art Festival by storm. Next month at the Ingleby Gallery, Scotland will have the opportunity to…

Victoria Crowe: Reflection

Rich but congested series of studies of Venice

18 Aug 2010

With so many shows in the Edinburgh Art Festival rigorously analysing the capital itself, Victoria Crowe’s show ‘Reflection’ offers an incongruous but welcome vacation from this theme. Instead of following the trends of site specificity or channelling…

The Space Between

Erratic mixed printmaking show

18 Aug 2010

Taking the theme of ‘space’ as its departure, it is unsurprising that the selection of work in Amber Art’s current show is erratic: by its very nature all artwork deals with space. It appears instead that the term is a comfortable theme within which to…

A Drawback

16 Aug 2010

The phenomenon of drawing has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, with many artists now returning to producing, exhibiting and selling contemporary drawings. This exhibition by Perennial Art celebrates the diversity and richness of the practice and…

5 Questions - Invisible Structures

13 Aug 2010

Invisible Structures has created a special outdoor environment of hidden treasures, workshops, performances, art and science experiments guided by interactive performers to Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens. Claudia Mosely from Invisible Works takes…

Atsuo Okomoto: Faraway Mountain

Japanese stone sculptor presents 12 pieces sculpted from same block

12 Aug 2010

The first UK solo exhibition by Japanese stone sculptor Okomoto showcases the technique of ‘war modoshi’, or splitting and returning, and features 12 pieces sculpted from the same block which can then be pushed together to reform the original piece. The…

Garage

12 Aug 2010

This new site-specific, collaborative exhibition developed during a series of micro-residencies in a New Town garage features work by UK-based international artists including Rebecca Key, Holly Fulton, Thomas MacGregor and Bob Moyler, and hosts various…

Hito Steyerl: In Free Fall

Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis

11 Aug 2010

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…

Mairi Gillies: Natura Sensus

Hortisculpturist explores the relationship between art and plants

11 Aug 2010

Mairi Gillies explores the interventionist nature of horticulture, which, as opposed to agriculture, isn’t always for harvesting, but rather for aesthetic, ownership and collection purposes. As a sculptor, she works with the notion of cultivating these…

Gemma Holt & Richard Healy: Shapes And Things

Making art from the everyday

11 Aug 2010

A partnership instigated by Edinburgh gallery Sierra Metro, ‘Shapes and Things’ is the first collaboration between London-based artists Richard Healy and Gemma Holt. Both work to manipulate and divert the language of design, injecting ‘newness’ into…

Joan Mitchell

Arresting display of abstract paintings

11 Aug 2010

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…

Thomas Carlile's Landscapes of Memory

Public art exhibition spread across the city interpretable by touch phones

5 Aug 2010

Keen-eyed observers will spot a number of black and white square barcodes amidst the shop signs and fly posting that decorate Edinburgh’s streets. But what is their purpose? Rachael Cloughton explains: The first one I saw was stuck to the concrete…

Gilbert and George exhibit at the National Gallery

Retrospective of the iconic art duo

5 Aug 2010

There’s something quite unnerving watching the three films that form the oldest contribution to this mini retrospective of Brit Art’s most enduring double act. Here they are, Gilbert and George, in grainy black and white, young men still in their 20s…

Iran do Espírito Santo

Brazilian artist comes to the Ingleby Gallery presenting visual puns

5 Aug 2010

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…

Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth: Staged

Edinburgh-based artists stage a cultural land grab from August’s invasion

5 Aug 2010

Entered by way of a curtained-off doorway and presented in a compact room whose pillar-effect cornices form a kind of proscenium arch, this collaborative show by Edinburgh-based artists Coleman and Hogarth sets out its stall as a reflection upon the…

Richard Healy: Shapes and Things - five questions

Sierra Metro artist on his influences and attitudes

5 Aug 2010

In their exhibition at Sierra Metro artists Richard Healy and Gemma Holt explore the language of design through sculptural pieces, site-specific film installation and architectural techniques. Here Richard outlines his influences and attitude towards…

Profusion of painting at 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival

Richard Wright, Joan Mitchell and Julie Roberts head up painting programme

4 Aug 2010

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…

New work from Moyna Flannigan at What You See is Where You’re At

One of Scotland’s most distinguished living painters at EAF 2010

3 Aug 2010

The Scottish Gallery of Modern Art continues to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a series of new commissions, including new work from Moyna Flannigan, one of Scotland’s most distinguished living painters, as part of the What You See is Where You’re…

Prints of Darkness

Playful compendium of new work exploring record cover art

29 Jul 2010

If a record is the ultimate mass-produced multiple, the mainstream music industry’s demise has seen a reclaiming of vinyl as a more bespoke medium whereby one work of art (musical) is packaged inside another (visual). This compendium lines up 13…

Sitting & Looking

Innovative group show offers comfortable, close examination of 21st century objects

28 Jul 2010

At first glance you might be forgiven for thinking you have wandered into an upmarket furniture store. Upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that there are wonders here that far outweigh the trappings of consumerism. Taking a seat to peruse the…

Edinburgh Art Festival surrealist exhibition Another World leaves potential unfulfilled

Impressive, if surprisingly straightforward, collection of surrealist works

27 Jul 2010

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…

William Wegman and Edward Weston mark City Art Centre reopening

EAF presents first major Scottish show from two great photographers

27 Jul 2010

Celebrating the reopening of the City Art Centre after a period of refurbishment are two photographic exhibitions by American artists: Edward Weston, one of the great classical photographers of the 20th century, and the contemporary photographer William…

Natura Sensus explores relationship between plants and people

Edinburgh-based 'Hortisculpturist’ Mairi Gillies at Art Festival

27 Jul 2010

5 words to describe your show at Atticsalt In the image of nature. 4 visual artists who should be better known than they currently are Jessica Harrison, Jock Mooney, Stuart MaCaffer and Rabiya Choudhry. 3 shows in this year’s Edinburgh Art…

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

Martin Creed: Down Over Up - Edinburgh Art Festival

The Turner Prize winner on his Festival work

15 Jul 2010

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

An overview of the 2010 Edinburgh Festivals and their directors

What to expect from Edinburgh in August

15 Jul 2010

Nowhere does a festival quite like Edinburgh, and even with the film folk having long moved out of August, there is more than plenty going on for lovers of art, literature, comedy, theatre, kids entertainment, music, dance and military displays. The…

More Edinburgh Art Festival highlights 2010

15 Jul 2010

In addition to shows by Gilbert & George, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth and Martin Creed, there are plenty of other highlights within the Edinburgh Art Festival programme. Impressionist Gardens After the hugely inspiring Impressionism and Scotland…

Richard Wright at Edinburgh Art Festival

7 Jul 2010

Richard Wright has always been a man to think outside the box. A Turner prize-winner, commended for ‘rejecting the canvas’, he’s done just that with his latest masterpiece. Commissioned by the Edinburgh Art Festival, Wright’s latest creation has been…

Edinburgh Art Festival work from Richard Wright

5 Jul 2010

Things are getting inventive at the Edinburgh Art Festival courtesy of 2009 Turner prize-winner Richard Wright, who has unveiled his specially commissioned painting for the EAF. Showcased in the west stairwell of the Dean Gallery, the black-on-white…

Edinburgh festivals line-ups announced

28 May 2010

Whatever your cultural poison, Edinburgh’s festival circuit has it covered

Visual Art hitlist

3 Sep 2009

Agnes Martin, Alan Davie, Cerith Wyn Evans with Throbbing Gristle, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Henry Coombes, Agnes Martin, Dani Marti, Thomas Hirschhorn

The Enlightenments

Don’t expect worship of Enlightenment rationalism from the artistic crowd

21 Aug 2009

A curious exhibition, The Enlightenments. As the extra ‘s’ suggests, it isn’t a homage to the art of the 18th century, and it doesn’t offer a single rational view of what ‘enlightenment’ might mean. The catalogue for this year’s International Festival…

Bob and Roberta Smith: This Artist is Deeply Dangerous

Humorously subverting the relationship between artist and critic

21 Aug 2009

Leave this one for last: it is a good end to a long day of wandering around the Festival. Bob and Roberta Smith’s painted panels hang in the plush interiors of Hawke and Hunter’s upstairs bar. Viewers can sit down on comfortable seats with soft throws…

5 Questions: Alex Hetherington

20 Aug 2009

5 words to describe your contributions to the Edinburgh Art Festival Intense, experiment, synthetic, synchronized, abrasive. 4 visual artists who should be better known than they currently are Ulrike Müller, Yuval Pudik, Lyndsay Mann, Christy…

Reveal/Reset

Ingenious web-based creations that sadly lack the ability to connect

14 Aug 2009

Designed to support the development of creative applications that challenge the notions of what networked or web-based digital creativity can be, the Alt-W Fund has financed new artworks by nine Scottish-based artists. New media projects include FOUND’s…

Rewind: Artists’ Video In The 70s & 80s

Audience-unfriendly presentation of a tricky medium

14 Aug 2009

In 1968 the portable camcorder was invented, and the decades which followed were a period of impassioned invention and experimentation in a fertile new medium. Rewind contains fine examples of video art. There are classic videos like David Hall’s ten…

Visual Art Hitlist

Our pick of the week's exhibitions

14 Aug 2009

Self-Made Cavalcade, Milestone, Jane and Louise Wilson: Unfolding the Aryan Papers, The Creative World of Alan Davie, The Enlightenments, The Discovery of Spain, Eva Hesse: Studiowork

The Travelling Gallery

14 Aug 2009

Now something of an annual institution, the Travelling Gallery returns to the capital, showing its wares from inside a big, beautiful bus. This year’s exhibition explores how contemporary artists are using paint, both on canvas and within other media…

5 Questions for Go Reborn

13 Aug 2009

Five things to see and buy at go reborn A rotating showcase of work by Scottish artists, designers, writers and fashionistas. A temporary pop-up Godiva shop taking the best of designers and newcomers from Godiva Boutique. Furniture that charts…

Top 20 Festival Shows

12 Aug 2009

Emmanuel Jal There are few people who could even imagine the terrors of being a child made to fight in a war-torn homeland. This guy has lived it and come through the other side. Jen Hadfield In a year of poetry shocks, this Shetlands-based…

Self-made Cavalcade

Playful, engaging group show by international artists

8 Aug 2009

Artists from Munich, Edinburgh and Glasgow go head to head in this enjoyable and playful exhibition of multimedia, multi-discipline work developed from a previous exchange show in the German city. Christian Newby’s ‘Kromvex Mirror’ opens the show…

Katie Pollard: Passing

Photographer’s finer details speak strongly of the mourning process

6 Aug 2009

This set of 15 C-type prints by American photographer Pollard was created in the short- and medium-term aftermath of the artist’s father’s death two years ago. The works track the reactions of her family to the news over an extended period of…