Visual art and Reviews

Martin Boyce: No Reflections

12 Jan 2010

As with most aspects of Martin Boyce’s reimagining of his 2009 contribution to the Venice Biennale, the autumn leaves that dust about the floor’s edges in the DCA aren’t quite what they seem. Made of paraffin-coated crepe paper and nestling alongside a…

Modernista: Gaudi and his Contemporaries in Modern Day Barcelona

12 Jan 2010

At the turn of the 20th century, Catalonia’s architectural response to European art nouveau was manifested in buildings such as the Park Güell, Casa Milà and the Sagrada Família, characterised by highly stylised organic motifs and curvilinear forms. A…

What You See is Where You’re At

6 Jan 2010

‘Everything is going to be alright,’ announces the neon installation by former Turner Prize winner Martin Creed as you approach the grand entrance to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It’s a fitting curtain raiser to the re-hang of the…

BP Portrait Award 2009

6 Jan 2010

The popular annual exhibition arrives at the Dean Gallery following its first outing in London, featuring a host of familiar names as well as some new international entrants since the competition expanded its reach beyond the British Isles. Of the 56…

Elin Jakobsdóttir: Hinges Between Days

5 Jan 2010

Various artistic attempts to render the familiar strange are here assembled in an extraordinarily neat sequence of objects, films and photographs. Icelandic artist Jakobsdóttir has got the knack for styling, and it’s the fastidious nature of these…

Votive

9 Dec 2009

Curated by Sarah Lowndes, Votive offers a well considered exhibition showcasing the works of international artists George Brecht, Chris Burden, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Thea Djordjadze, Torsten Lauschmann and Richard Wright. It also includes artefacts from…

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…

The Heart of the Great Alone: Scott, Shackleton and Antarctic Photography

4 Dec 2009

Bringing together photography from both Scott’s South Pole expedition (1910–1913) and Shackleton’s later attempt to cross Antarctica on foot (1914–16), The Heart of the Great Alone is more than a collection of images – it is a narrative journey and an…

Siobhán Hapaska: The Nose That Lost Its Dog

24 Nov 2009

Scottish deer skin stretched over stainless steel, fibre glass and slate powder in resin, and an uprooted olive tree suspended in mid air by various steel components are some of the materials that have been used by Siobhán Hapaska to give life to three…

Colin Gray: In Sickness And In Health

24 Nov 2009

The Parents is a photographic series featuring Colin Gray’s folks. It officially began in 1980, but Glasgow-based Gray started taking pictures of his mum and dad when he was a mere five-year-old boy. His obsession with documenting family occasions…

Karla Black: Sculptures

19 Nov 2009

While these new sculptures comprise Karla Black’s now familiar array of nebulous materials – chalk dust, eye shadow, sugar paper – they command a more distinct level of authority than has previously been seen. Her impermanent sculptures transcend…

Anna Sikorska: Exchange and Harbour

19 Nov 2009

It was a while ago now that the European surrealists were drawn to the marvel of surprise juxtapositions – Lautréamont’s poetic proclamation about the chance meeting on a dissecting table of an umbrella with a sewing machine, sparked something pretty…

Charlie Hammond: The New Improvement Scheme

19 Nov 2009

Glasgow-based painter, Charlie Hammond, exhibits a new body of work under the banner The New Improvement Scheme. His canvasses have been altered, added to, taken from, layered with impasto ceramic-laced paint and sheets of raw linen dressed in shades of…

Luke Fowler: A Grammar For Listening

19 Nov 2009

Ever noticed the after-effect of sound rustling through a cityscape? What happens when images recede to the backdrop and sound takes on the leading role? Luke Fowler – in collaboration with Eric La Casa, Lee Patterson and Toshiya Tsunoda – creates field…

The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing

19 Nov 2009

The End of the Line may just be the beginning of a resurgence in interest to the humbled medium of drawing. The 11 international artists take ownership of the space with skill and innovation – especially in the case of Monika Gryzmala who has created a…

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…

Salt of the Earth

National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, until Sun 10 Jan

4 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…

Running Time

29 Oct 2009

This is an important exhibition. Surveying a recent history of artists’ films in Scotland since the 1960s, Running Time presents more than 100 single-screen film and video works. A testament to both the strength of time-based art as an artistic tool…

New Work Scotland Programme

29 Oct 2009

Three swings with long chains made of china and crockery currently hang from a great height in Craig’s Close. Staggered and poised, they drop in close proximity to the walls: only chinks remain between the unforgiving brick and the fragile porcelain. If…

Lara Favaretto

29 Oct 2009

Kids wriggle out of their parents’ hands and run around to imitate the colourful carwash brushes spinning like whirling dervishes. Choreographed by Italian artist Lara Favaretto, these large kaleidoscopic objects have been installed around the…

David Austen: My love, I have been digging up my own bones in the garden again

23 Oct 2009

The topsy-turvy poetics of David Austen’s exhibition title are in keeping with the tragicomic works of which the exhibition is comprised. At once fragile and striking, this collection of watercolour figures, bold text paintings and a silent film study…

Torsten Lauschmann: The Darker Ages

The art of technology

15 Oct 2009

Torsten Lauschmann is an artist’s artist: highly regarded by his Glasgow-based peers, he never fails to impress. This show featuring a new body of work conjures up a cinematic experience as you enter a darkened room and find yourself somewhere between…

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…

Alex Dordoy: Winner

A metaphysical battle of paint versus reality

1 Oct 2009

There is something of a painting coup d’état happening here: an insistent need for paint to overthrow and overwrite objects, for objects to be perceived first and foremost through the physical medium of liquid substances – as if the artist sees paint…

Lilah Fowler: In Time

Techno-utopian triumph, or merely decoration?

1 Oct 2009

There are plenty of faddy terms to be bandied about in response to Fowler’s exhibition of sleek minimalist sculptures and wall drawings – neo-geo, retro-futuristic or techno-utopian, to name but a few. But essentially, these rather lovely works are all…