Visual art and Exhibition

Artist Matthew Darbyshire set for new Tramway show

London artists draws inspiration from Charles Rennie Mackintosh

6 Jan 2012

The distinctive art nouveau style of artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh has become synonymous with Glasgow. Lauded for his elegant design of the art school, and the organic allure of his decorative works, his influence now reaches well beyond his artistic…

Warm up this winter with free art in Edinburgh

4 Jan 2012

Now the party season is over and the festivities long gone, you and your wallet could probably do with a little TLC. Luckily the National Galleries of Scotland have a full programme of free exhibitions and events during January, to help nourish the mind…

Interview: Kirsty Whiten

Breeder Badlands show at Edinburgh Printmakers

19 Dec 2011

What made you want to be an artist? The uniform. And the pension plan. Your new solo show, Breeder Badlands, explores the complexities of the familial unit. What was the original inspiration for the exhibition? This work is really personal – friends and…

Design and Democracy exhibition - Free Family Weekend to mark St Andrew's Day

Free events include building your own rocket and radio-controlled car

16 Nov 2011

Design affects the lives of all of us. Whether it’s an intuitive new phone, a car that tells us we’ve left the lights on, or the Kindle doing something nobody expected and actually improving on the design of a book, who of us have not had our lives…

Thea Djordjadze - Lost Promise in a Room

A considered display of sculpture and objects in effective, minimalist setting

15 Nov 2011

Strange objects roughly sculpted in plaster, propped up against walls, placed in corners and laid out in unusual places, are contrasted against minimalist lines of steel and smooth mirrored cubes. A lump of chicken wire is securely contained in a…

Transmission Gallery Group Show

Sam Derounian, Graham Kelly and Conor Kelly shine in local artist showcase

15 Nov 2011

A commendable group show brings together new work by nine Glasgow-based artists at the Transmission Gallery. Without a didactic theme to tie the exhibition together the viewer is free to contemplate works individually and to make subtle links with…

Glasgay!: Re-Invention

Exhibition and workshop aimed at gay and trans comic fans

19 Sep 2011

The idea of gay culture in comics is nothing new, with handfuls of uptight academics frantically pointing out the homoerotic sub-tones of Batman and Robin’s cartoon exploits since the 1950s. The foundations of X-Men arguably lie in the civil rights…

Stephen Sutcliffe: Runaway, Success

Biography-obsessed artist hides behind his heroes

11 Aug 2011

It’s been a while since Yorkshire-born Glasgow resident Sutcliffe has trotted out his curious wares in Scotland, and it’s not difficult to see why. His work is moody and peppered with arch cultural references to complex arty prima donnas Joe Orton…

Chris Drury - Land, Water and Language

A man, his boat and some nice scenery

11 Aug 2011

Life’s a journey not a destination and other such homilies. God preserve us from the travelogue artists. Chris Drury is one such artist. This exhibition, which was initially created for Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre in North Uist, takes its…

Norman McBeath & Robert Crawford: Body Bags / Simonides

Mournful collaboration between photographer and poet

11 Aug 2011

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…

Urs Fischer and Georg Herold

Sculpture exhibiition examining the art-making process

3 Aug 2011

On a red divan a reclining nude has settled into a classical pose. She appears completely still, her milk white skin wraps serenely around her hyper-real body, her glassy blue eyes complete the life like sculpture. Upon closer inspection the rise and…

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…

Gina Glover – Playgrounds of War

Evocative photography exhibition concerning militarized landscapes

3 Aug 2011

A small child kitted out in wellies and a windbreaker stands with her hands covering her ears between large truck tracks in a desolate, barren, concrete landscape. This black and white photograph forms part of a 1980s series that shows the artist’s…

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…

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.

Gravity's Rainbow

Pynchon-inspired group show explores different representations of colour

21 Jul 2011

The acid house smiley face on the sunny yellow ball of Peter Liversidge’s shelf-load of single-hued detritus speaks volumes about this colour-focused group show of eight artists that takes its title from Thomas Pynchon’s baroque noir. It begins with a…

Breaking the Renaissance Code

Exhibition exploring emblems, taking place at The Hunterian Gallery, Glasgow, until Tue 4 Oct

21 Jul 2011

Depending on whether you are a critic or an avid fan of the bestselling Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown both heralded and slew the art of emblematic thinking. This small yet punchy exhibition puts examples of Dürer, Rembrandt and Holbein’s use of symbolic…

Alistair Frost & Gerda Scheepers

Group show at Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 6 Aug

21 Jul 2011

With works that deal with painting as their surface connection, but later reveal a linguistic undercurrent, the latest show at Mary Mary is an exploration of symbols and signs. Gerda Scheeper’s minimal figurative paintings focus on both the sensual and…

World Press Photo 2011 in Edinburgh - Jodi Bieber interview

Photo of mutilated young Afghan woman a symbol of tormented times

8 Jul 2011

Bibi Aisha was 18 when the Taliban came calling for her just before midnight. Forced into a mountain clearing in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, she was put on trial and convicted by a local commander. Her crime: fleeing from a violent husband…

Nina Rhode: Friendly Fire / Cara Tolmie: Read thou Art And Read Thou Shalt Remain

Two art films from a Berliner and a Glasweigan

14 Jun 2011

If the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where it really ends (‘laa-la-laaa-la’), as a zenned-out Hal David once wrote to a Burt Bacharach choon, then both Nina Rhode and Cara Tolmie’s worlds seem to be on a permanent loop in these…

Cryptic Nights: Inhabitants

A one-off fusion of live contemporary dance performance

14 Jun 2011

Fresh from performing in Geneva as part of the International Mapping Festival, one of Scotland’s most innovative companies presents a one-off fusion of live contemporary dance performance, sound and film as part of Cryptic Nights. Inhabitants is…

Narcissus Reflected

The David Lomas-curated Fruitmarket exhibition is an effective reflection of the nature of vanity

27 May 2011

Don McLean got it right in his 1972 song ‘Narcisissima’: ‘Narcissima, Narcisissma is the pride of Pomona/Pomona, Pomona says she looks like me/But she will look like you when I’m set free.’ Narcissus of Greek myth and his Freudian descendant have long…

Victoria Clare Bernie: Slow Water

Scottish landscape photography exhibition by the Edinburgh-based artist

27 May 2011

A scientific orderliness contains Slow Water. Photographs, videos, digital drawings and animation made during a residency post at the Scottish Association for Marine Science Research Laboratory based near Oban are meticulously placed in contrast to the…

Shadows of the Divine features works by John Bellany and John Byrne

A collection of modern religious art pieces at the New College gallery

27 May 2011

This selection of works of modern religious art includes work by a number of well-known artists including Scottish greats Craigie Aitchison, John Bellany, Peter Howson, Ken Currie and John Byrne as well as Graham Sutherland and Elisabeth Frink. These…

Jupiter Artland opens its season with a new Charles Jencks exhibition

The ourdoor 'art park' also features work by Anthony Gormley

25 Apr 2011

You know that spring has sprung when Jupiter Artland opens its doors with a new season – and this year’s artistic bloom looks to be just as exciting as their last. Launching with special exhibition Metaphysical Landscape by landform artist, philosopher…

Ulla von Brandenburg: Neue Alte Welt review

The German artist's 'Chorspiel' provides a mesmerising centrepiece to this exhibition

20 Apr 2011

German artist Ulla von Brandenburg’s exhibition Neue Alte Welt (New Old World) consists of three parts: a short film, a wall painting of a theatre hall, and a collection of objects that act as theatrical props. ‘Chorspiel’ is part-opera…

Jonathan Owen's print and sculpture exhibition is a beguiling game of hide and seek

20 Apr 2011

The nutcracker suite of small carved figures that form the modest centrepiece of Jonathan Owen’s discreet boudoir of a show appear to be hiding from themselves. The top half of one’s head is a fragile cage with a perfectly centred nut where the brain…

Scottish artists Alberto Morrocco, William Littlejohn and David McClure feature in Kinblethmont Gallery exhibition

14 Apr 2011

The artists Alberto Morrocco, William Littlejohn and David McClure were all contemporaries who painted in distinct modern styles influenced both by European painting and the Scottish tradition epitomised by the Scottish colourists. Much acclaimed in…

The events from Scottish history that shaped the nation's character

Jacobites exhibition reveals source of sentimentality in Scottish psyche

27 Oct 2010

Rebels with a Cause: The Jacobites and the Global Imagination exhibition reveals origin of Scottish character’s tendency for the romantic, mournful and sentimental.

Robert Barry's Words and Music

19 Aug 2010

Robert Barry, who wilfully abandoned painting in 1967 to become one of the central figures of conceptual art, is having his first solo showcase Words and Music in Glasgow. Dematerialising the art object, Barry developed a practice producing ephemeral…

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…

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…

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…

Artist Anthony Fry on why he’s happy to be back in Scotland.

As well as why he loves coming home to paint

5 Aug 2010

As he prepares to showcase work inspired by exotic foreign locations renowned painter Anthony Fry tells Talitha Kotzé why he’s delighted to be back in Scotland. Well-known for needing the heat to paint, Anthony Fry has spent a great deal of time in…

Martin Creed - Down Over Up

Playful exercise in keeping order from the Turner Prize winning artist

5 Aug 2010

It’s tough at the top, as class-conscious ex-Animal Alan Price once sang. Price also added that it’s rougher at the bottom, and positively boring in-between. Equally pertinent to the irresistible rise of Martin Creed is Robin the Frog’s maxim by way of…

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…

Alexander and Susan Maris' The Pursuit of Fidelity (a Retrospective)

A journey back in time in search of truth, faithfulness and accuracy

5 Aug 2010

‘I am in pursuit of fidelity and if I find it in no dearer time would I rather live,’ reads the passage written above two lovers on a 15th century tapestry in the Burrell Collection. The tapestry, reproduced on a wooden board on the gallery wall at…

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…

Edinburgh exhibition by Portobello-based blind artist Rosita McKenzie

Photos that capture the desired essence of an image.

5 Aug 2010

Diverse series of photographs by Portobello-based artist McKenzie, who has been completely blind since the age of 12 and homes in on people’s personalities and ‘pure essences’ to capture the desired image. Her subjects include Edinburgh’s Makar, Ron…

Mandy Edwards: a Celebration

A look at the social landscape and development of Glasgow's East End

5 Aug 2010

This documentary project by photographer Mandy Edwards looks at the social landscape and development of Glasgow’s East End ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games through 50 portraits of local shopkeepers, workers and owners of local businesses that are…

Hat Trick: Recoat Third Birthday Exhibition

Glasgow gallery's third birthday brings artists from all over Europe

3 Aug 2010

Break out the candles and streamers – Recoat, those West Coast specialists in illustration, street art, graffiti and photography have hit another milestone. To mark the gallery’s third birthday, artists from Poland, Belgium, germany and England…

Steph Marsden launches exhibition space this August

Magpie Design Industries creator opens shop in Edinburgh

22 Jul 2010

Working mainly in wood, Steph Marsden produces handmade contemporary, sculptural furniture and design-led accessories. Steph studied design and cabinetmaking at Adam Smith College, Kirkcaldy and in 2007 was awarded the Haldane UK Design Scholarship. She…

Johan Grimonprez - dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y

10 Jun 2010

Johan Grimonprez Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 11 July. By concluding his 60-minute history of airplane hijackings with a slow-motion sequence of explosive crash landings set to the saccharine tones of Van McCoy’s ‘The Hustle’, Grimonprez…

ECA and GSA Degree Shows 2010

9 Jun 2010

As Glasgow and Edinburgh prepare to showcase their finest outgoing talent with their much anticipated degree shows, Talitha Kotzé meets some of the makers

Glasgow International - Mark Cousins meets Douglas Gordon

15 Apr 2010

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art returns this fortnight with a mouth-watering programme of work by over 50 artists in venues across the city, based around the theme ‘past, present, future’. Opening the festival, internationally renowned…

Linder - King’s Ransom (Hybrid Tea)

15 Apr 2010

Legendary visual artist and Morrissey pal Linder discusses her epic new performance piece and eagerly awaited exhibition with Neil Cooper What are words worth? ‘Glamour’, for instance, is a Scottish derivative that comes directly from the word…

Jimmie Durham - Glasgow International

15 Apr 2010

Sculptor Jimmie Durham’s work is informed by politics and an immersion in his surroundings. Liz Shannon talks to him about his practice The renowned American sculptor Jimmie Durham has not shied away from using local materials in the creation of his…

Killing Curves: Lynn Ahren

22 Mar 2010

Killing curves Scottish artist Lynn Ahrens’ figure painting carries murderous intent. Paul Dale chats to him about his work Glasgow-born, Edinburgh-trained, and under- appreciated painter Lynn Ahrens likes to talk about the human figure. ‘My work has…

Frances Stark: Collage

19 Mar 2010

But what of Frances Stark, standing by itself, a naked name, bare as a ghost to whom one would like to lend a sheet? Los Angeles-based artist, Frances Stark, uses collage on paper and canvas board to create gentle and visually pared down works which…

Laura Aldridge: Cats Are Not Important

19 Mar 2010

You cannot view this exhibition in any other way than through the lens created by its title: Cats Are Not Important. Glasgow-based, ex-Transmission gallery committee member Laura Aldridge exhibits knot-tied sculptures in pastel hues arranged against…

The Printmaker’s Art

19 Mar 2010

The oft misunderstood art of printmaking is represented here by masters of the craft, both Scottish and international. Visitors may struggle to find the darkened room down in the basement where the 30 plus collected prints are situated, but it is well…

Glasgow Art Fair 2010

19 Mar 2010

Glasgow Art Fair Now back for its 15th year, Glasgow Art Fair has long painted a colourful canvas for those interested in buying and selling art, and this year looks set to be no different. Setting its trademark white tented pavilion in Glasgow’s George…

Peter Liversidge: The Thrill Of It All

4 Mar 2010

Liversidge has built up a reputation on the back of his ‘proposals’ for artworks and this latest exhibition is a series written for, and realised at, the Ingleby. His suggestions to the gallery’s owners range from the tangible (proposing to paint the…

Dürer & Italy

4 Mar 2010

This new exhibition of engravings by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) focuses on the influence of the German artist on his Italian contemporaries, which included Raphael. The exhibition presents astonishingly detailed engravings and woodcuts by the…

Lindsay Grime in Central Station showcase

23 Feb 2010

The List is teaming up with Central Station, the online hub for visual artists, to showcase some of the most promising young artists at work in the UK today. For the first in this series we’ve selected the work of illustrator and ceramicist Lindsay…

Darren Banks: Soothsayers / Oonagh Hegarty: Tabloid Alchemy

27 Jan 2010

It’s Hell in there. Or at least it sounds like it. From the moment you step into Sierra Metro’s concrete darkness at the edge of town, you’re hit with a barrage of mind-melding visual and aural loops, from Italian goresploitation flicks to bug-eyed…

Love - Sorcha Dallas interview

Affair of the art

14 Jan 2010

As exhibition titles go, you could hardly get more intriguing or evocative than Love. Yet, as Sorcha Dallas, proprietor of one of Glasgow’s most exciting contemporary spaces, points out, the name of the gallery’s first group show of 2010 is more than a…

Garry Fabian Miller: The Colours

9 Dec 2009

There is something strikingly elemental about Garry Fabian Miller’s practice. Fascinated by the photographic process, Miller has received acclaim for his investigations into the possibilities of camera-less photography – an intrigue that reduces his art…

Salt of the Earth

19 Nov 2009

There are a few surprises at what might have been a straightforward showcase of some of Scotland’s famous faces by Craig Mackay. The first revelation is that not all the usual suspects are present, and the second is the inclusion of a few famous faces…

Bik van der Pol: It Isn't What It Used To Be And Never Will Be Again

Art out of nothing

15 Oct 2009

Dutch duo Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol’s current exhibition at CCA is the culmination of a two-month residency at Cove Park. There’s no beating around the bush here: it isn’t what is used to be and never will be again. Deal with it. Derived from…

Hitlist: Visual art

The fortnight's most fascinating artworks and exhibitions

15 Oct 2009

Running Time, Taking Liberties: John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, David Austen: My love, I have been digging up my own bones in the garden again, Torsten Lauschmann: The Darker Ages, Charlie Hammond: The New Improvement Scheme, Lara Favaretto, An Entangled Bank

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…

The Tale of Genji

Japanese woodblock printing

20 Aug 2009

Drawn from the Henry Dyer collection of Japanese art, this exhibition features reproduced pages from the 1857 woodblock printed album, Murasaki Shikibu Genji Cards, inspired by Ryutei Tanehiko’s serial novel Fate Murasaki and A Rustic Genji, itself a…

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

Top 5 Things To Do This Week

14 Aug 2009

Bloody Beetroot (clubs), Inglourious Basterds (film), Emergent Artists (Visual Art), Soulsavers (music), Christopher Brookmyre (books)

Emergent Artists - Glasgow School of Art

13 Aug 2009

Four years ago, the exhibitions department at the Glasgow School of Art initiated a programme to support early career artists based in Glasgow. Selected artists are given the opportunity to exhibit new work in one of the beautiful high ceiling studios…

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…

Made in God's Image

Defending the GOMA exhibition that brings together the Bible and the LGBTI

10 Aug 2009

Anthony Schrag looks a bit stressed out when we meet. It’s been a big couple of weeks for the Gallery of Modern Art’s artist in residence, for reasons you may well have heard of. Made in God’s Image, a community outreach exhibition he organised to…

The phenomenon of DIY art environments

6 Aug 2009

Ever since conceptualism broke through in the 1960s, regular gallery interiors, be they extravagantly antique pieces of architecture or ice-cool white cubes, have lost their power to imprison work within their over-bearing walls. In the last couple of…

Collaborative exhibition by Baldvin Ringsted and Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir

6 Aug 2009

The inside of a grand piano has been painted black and raised onto short legs. Black growth infiltrates its entrails. This is the first collaborative piece by Baldvin Ringsted and Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir, and will form the central piece for their…

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…

This is Now: From Drawing to Contexture

Well-stocked ragbag from a new wave of textile artists

6 Aug 2009

The first impact of this show, and the most enduring, is the overwhelming urge to touch. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the artworks are more tactile than, say, a series of oil paintings.

Top 5 things to do this week

6 Aug 2009

We go behind the scenes of the first collaborative exhibition by Baldvin Ringsted and Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir and explore the theme of improvisation versus skill that informs their work. Intermedia Gallery, CCA, Glasgow, Tue 18 Aug–Sun 6 Sep.

MAGAZINE 09: Creative Spaces

6 Aug 2009

Inspired by Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s plans to create an international centre for contemporary sculpture, three artists have been invited to explore the notion of creative space within ESW’s existing premises. The artists will particularly focus on…

Nashashibi / Skaer: Our Magnolia

Collaborators tackle controversial subject compellingly and powerfully

5 Aug 2009

The artistic careers of Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer have followed parallel courses. Born two years apart, the pair studied at Glasgow School of Art, exhibited at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, and have collaborated as Nashashibi/Skaer on five…

Tonite - The Modern Institute, Glasgow

29 Jul 2009

Mixed-media Tonite is a hit-and-miss show featuring the works of Hany Armanious, Martin Boyes, Martin Creed, Mark Handforth, Richard Hughes, Jim Lambie, Torsten Lauschmann, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, Sue Tompkins, Cathy Wilkes, Klaus Weber…

Creativity vs Destruction: Stories of Iraqi Art

9 Jul 2009

The closing event of this year’s excellently curated Reel Iraq festival, this exhibition explores not only major artworks coming out of Iraq, but also the tribulations and obstacles that artists from that country have to go through in order to create…

Affair of the art

25 Jun 2009

Every movement needs its muse. So it was with the surrealists’ boys club, whereby Picasso, Man Ray, Max Ernst and co turned the art world upside down while leading equally tempestuous private lives. Take poet and painter Paul Eluard, for instance, whose…

Edvard Munch: Prints

25 Jun 2009

Death, existential angst and the impossibility of love are recurring themes in this exhibition of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s prints. Devised as a cunning strategy to publicise his paintings, the appeal of the prints is more timeless, and the…

Helen Baker: In colour

25 Jun 2009

PAINTING Helen Baker describes her new paintings as resembling ‘shrunken Bridget Rileys, frayed and left on the wrong wash cycle’. It’s a canny comparison. Where Riley’s op-art pieces were born from a precise structural aesthetic, Baker’s mosaic-like…

Moyna Flannigan, Isabel Nolan & Hanneline Visnes

25 Jun 2009

Mixed media There’s something quietly playful going on in this understated group show, a feeling that’s captured best by Isabel Nolan’s ‘The Unfolding Moment’. A small rug laid out on the floor beneath two framed pieces, its vivid greens covered with…

On the Record

28 May 2009

‘I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking …’ So begins Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye To Berlin. While the book is now most famous as the inspiration for the musical Cabaret, the new exhibition of artists’ films…

Tobias Sternberg: Review

28 May 2009

Those who have been through art college or a creative visual media course might have experienced the collage test at some point: the challenge being to use found images to create a composite with some kind of combined visual meaning. The aim is to…

In the frame: Edinburgh Art Festival

28 May 2009

Never one to be outshone by its more established August counterparts, the Edinburgh Art Festival has announced a roster of talent, with major exhibitions from world-renowned artists, as well as an extraordinary programme of sculpture work, at over 50…

Francesca Woodman

28 May 2009

Francesca Woodman created a remarkable body of work in her short life (she committed suicide in 1981 at the age of 22), some of which can currently be seen at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s Artist Rooms. This beautifully presented…

Lest Bogles Catch Him Unawares: Elph versus Robert Burns

28 May 2009

Back-street dives in concrete jungles have long been the preserve of graffiti art, where sprayed-on masterpieces can liven up the breeze-block one day, only to be whitewashed over the next. Such, alas, is the ephemeral, fly-by-night nature of the pop…

Will Barras and Rue Five: Crystal is the New Wolf

28 May 2009

Tucked away near the Woodside Social, Recoat’s bizarrely titled two-man show presents an intriguing twist on street art. Featuring work by London-based designer and illustrator Will Barras and Stirling’s Rue Five, the exhibition includes a large-scale…

Phil Collins: The World Won’t Listen

30 Apr 2009

REVIEW INSTALLATION PHIL COLLINS: THE WORLD WON’T LISTEN This is one of those rare exhibitions where a verbal articulation cannot do justice to the work on display. The three-part video installation ‘The World Won’t Listen’, filmed in Colombia, Turkey…

Julian House: The New Spirit Happening

30 Apr 2009

The future as we imagined it floated into view somewhere between 1950 and 1975. This was when a peculiarly English strain of science-fiction emerged, fuelled by postwar possibilities and Cold War paranoia. Quatermass and The Pit and Village of the…

Barbara Probst

30 Apr 2009

German artist Barbara Probst’s photographic work ‘Exposure #48: Munich, Minerviusstra(e 11, 01.06.07, 3:17pm’, images a double portrait of a model. In the first photograph the girl looks directly into the lens, and in the second her face, carrying the…

20 Years On: Remembering the Anti-Poll Tax Demonstrations

16 Apr 2009

Margaret Thatcher liked to call it the community charge. To the rest of us it was the poll tax – one of the most universally loathed tax reforms ever to pass through the House of Commons. To commemorate 20 years since the introduction of the poll tax…

Neil Clements: Built. Lacking.

2 Apr 2009

While primarily known as a painter, whose shaped canvases based on the designs of classic rock guitars were shown at DCA last year, Neil Clements’ new series of works for Edinburgh’s doggerfisher has required him to adapt his usual working methods. ‘I…

sh[OUT]: Contemporary Art and Human Rights

2 Apr 2009

PREVIEW EXHIBITION Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex life is placed centre stage this summer as part of GoMA’s biennial social justice programme, which explores human rights through the lens of contemporary art. While there are few…

Artist Rooms

2 Apr 2009

GROUP SHOW One of two flagship group shows to stem from Anthony d’Offay’s gift to the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate last year (the other is at Tate Modern), Artist Rooms is bright and inspiring and bulges with defining work from some of the…

The Associates

2 Apr 2009

ANNIVERSARY GROUP SHOW The DCA celebrates its tenth anniversary with this show of 17 now major artists weaned on its doorstep at Duncan of Jordanstone College. Named in homage to the most flamboyantly brilliant pop group ever sired in the city, pop…

Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Etchings

2 Apr 2009

ETCHINGS ‘That in Art, it is criminal to go beyond the means used in its exercise,’ wrote James McNeill Whistler in his book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. Referring to the size of the copper plate used in relation to the fine pointed needle to…

Hayley Tompkins: Autobuilding

2 Apr 2009

MIXED MEDIA Over the past ten years GSA graduate Tompkins has drawn recognition for her abstract compositions. On the strength of this show, however, hers is an oeuvre that seems to have (to quote American cleric/writer Norman Vincent Peale) been…