Visual art, Issue 695

George Wyllie: A Life Less Ordinary

Valuable retrospective of the Whysman's work

Environmental art may be all the rage these days, but, as with the soon to be mothballed Collins Gallery, George Wyllie was way ahead of the curve. While best known for huge public spectacles The Straw Locomotive and The Paper Boat, as well as a…

Cornish visual artist Kurt Jackson discusses his history and working practices

Artbeat Kurt Jackson What was the first exhibition you went to see? Being the son of two artists meant that I was brought up visiting numerous exhibitions, both of their contemporaries and public shows. However, there was an exhibition in 1985 at…

Jeremy Deller on Sacrilege - interview

The Turner Prize-winning artists discusses his latest exhibitions, including one for the GI

This is what Jeremy Deller will say, pre-embargo, about Sacrilege, the large public artwork that he’s unveiling on Glasgow Green as part of Glasgow International: ‘It’s a large public art work.’ This is what he will say if you try the Cunning…

Edinburgh Art Festival 2012

Includes Susan Philipsz, Kevin Harman, Andrew Miller and Anthony Schrag

From repurposed warehouses to historic masterpieces, the Edinburgh Art Festival’s 2012 programme, to be unveiled this August, showcases international stars, world-renowned artists and local heroes. The all-new ‘Promenade Programme’ of publicly sited…

How to become a lomographer

Six quick steps to becoming a hipster snap artist

Follow the rules The 10 Golden Rules set down at lomography.com provide some helpful guidelines in regards to stylish snapping. They are: Take your camera everywhere you go Use it anytime – day and night Lomography is not an interference with your…

Central Station: Rosemary Head

Dundee-based sculptor of clay

Now based at Tin Roof Arts Collective in Dundee, Rosemary Head moved to Scotland from Derbyshire to attend Dundee University, where she studied art, philosophy and contemporary practices. Inspired by the interdisciplinary focus of this course, and…

Dundee's Ignite festival 2012 showcases theatre, contemporary art and dance

Featuring Jon McGregor, Scott Myles and Boris Gerrets

As if the launch of the Edinburgh Art Festival programme was not sufficient this issue, visual art innovations are going on right across the country. Internet megalith Google has launched a partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland to bring…

Glasgow International 2012 - 8 Scottish-based artists to watch

Featuring Christine Jones, David Galletly and 85A collective

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art returns this month with some of the best-known names in contemporary art showing their work in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. To mark the festival’s launch we’re celebrating the success of…

FOUND and Aidan Moffat collaborate on new project #Unravel

Installation based on events from Moffat's life

As the old saying goes, there are three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and the truth. Or in the case of Aidan Moffat’s latest storytelling project, there is his version, her version, and somewhere, maybe lost forever in the mists of time, the…

Jennifer Gregor, organiser of A Little April Foolery - opinion

Events are being staged in opposition to restrictive event licencing laws

Imagine a country where every artistic event, from painters exhibiting a few pieces in cafés to readings in bookshops, had to be licensed. Even if it’s tiny. Even if it’s free. That could be Scotland after 1 April. New legislation on Public…

Profile: Music, fashion and wedding photographer Kat Gollock

The Edinburgh-based photographer on her approach to photography

I can remember the first photo I took that someone commented on. It was of my dad standing in front of some usual holiday vista in France. Both Mum and Dad commented on how good a photo it was, but it was the first time they really meant it.

Profile: photographer Takeshi Suga, aka Sugar Crisp

Japanese-born, Glasgow-based music photographer

Takeshi Suga (aka Sugar Crisp) is a Japanese-born photographer now living in Glasgow. He takes photographs for the Fence Collective, NME and himself and mixes digital photography with the use of analogue cameras such as the £45 Diana Mini First…

Edinburgh Art Festival announces 2012 programme

Susan Philipsz and Donald Judd among the visiting artists

Edinburgh Art Festival launched its ninth annual programme today by announcing an impressive catalogue of exhibitions that will be put on throughout the city Thu 2 Aug-Sun 2 Sep.

Visual artist Folkert de Jong on what art means to him

The sculptor shares his thoughts ahead of an exhibition at the GI

For me, art is about life and the human condition. It’s a very efficient medium to communicate about life and our individual position in it. I see the art exhibition space as a podium on which I can communicate with an audience. The audience becomes a…

Emory Douglas - Creator of iconic imagery behind Black Panther Party

GI show from American Black Power movement linchpin

‘In Revolution one wins, or one dies.’ When this slogan appeared aloft Emory Douglas’ image of a couple of beret-clad African-American guerrillas on a big-screen back-drop at major concert halls around the world, it was a far cry from the roots of…

Practice of Mexican artist Teresa Margolles examines mortality

Glasgow Sculpture Studios show takes on English riots and drug crimes

Mexican artist Teresa Margolles arrived in Scotland for her three-month Glasgow Sculpture Studios residency just as the riots kicked off in England last year. She travelled down to pick up debris from the aftermath, which will be used in her exhibition…

Kelly Nipper's Black Forest show set for Glasgow International

Vast installation incorporating dance, ceramics, textiles and print

For all the apparent complexities of Los Angeles artist Kelly Nipper’s oeuvre – her commitment to Labanotation, the system used for analysing dance, or her interest in geometry – a fairly simple conceit lies at its heart. For Nipper, human movement…

Rosalind Nashashibi makes film with Scottish Ballet

Glasgow-trained artist's film in conjunction with Glasgow International

Acclaimed for her 16mm films, the works of Glasgow-trained artist Rosalind Nashashibi often examine the formation of ad-hoc communities, issues of staging and the use of theatricality in altering the commonplace. Poring affectionately over her material…

Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans the subject of Common Guild Exhibition

The show promises to showcase the breadth of his artistic output

People have been making pictures for thousands of years, and 150 years ago the photographic process was added to that vocabulary. German-born, London-based artist Wolfgang Tillmans makes no distinction between a photograph and a painting, but he chooses…

Alec Finlay show at Edinburgh's Ingleby Gallery

Quintet of ‘poem-objects’ reflects ideas of memory through biography

To subtitle mention of the artist with the fact that he’s the son of Ian Hamilton Finlay is to run down his own acute artistic sensibility without cause. Yet it’s inescapable here, because this quintet of ‘poem-objects’ reflects ideas of memory through…

Alison Turnbull

Constrained pieces exploring ideas of order and chaos

Order and chaos, Alison Turnbull’s work implies, are both simple functions of human perspective, with her seemingly very precisely constrained pieces actually subject to no more than the artist’s own arbitrary designs for them. In large part that’s a…