Visual Art

Smith/Stewart: Enter Love and Enter Death

15 Nov 2007

SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION Royal Botanic Gardens, Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 20 Jan Simply entering Smith/Stewart’s new exhibition is difficult. Faced directly with a black horizontal girder, one feels tempted to advance, yet hesitant.

Preview of the year 2007

2007 is about the future. And about the past. It’

3 Jan 2007

THE FUTURE Cyberspace invaders We may not be flying around in hover cars or wearing spangly all-silver outfits, but thanks to the internet the future has truly arrived. And the revolution will continue apace in 2007, argues Suzanne Black. A…

Leith Festival announces line up

8 May 2008

Leith provided further evidence of its status as one of the city's most vibrant areas with the launch of its annual festival. Organisers revealed that the Leith Festival would showcase its trademark brew of home grown talent, alongside big name…

Records Played Backwards

8 May 2008

GROUP SHOW The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 10 May Just like the teenager in the 80s playing his or her Iron Maiden records in reverse while hoping to hear Satanic messages, the artists in this group exhibition busy themselves trying to find…

Melanie Gilligan

8 May 2008

PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATION Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 10 May This exhibition by London-based artist and writer Melanie Gilligan takes place not in the usual Transmission gallery, but in an upper Wasps studio space opposite. The…

Kalup Linzy

24 Apr 2008

FILM, PERFORMANCE AND PAINTING Washington Garcia, Glasgow, until Sun 27 Apr New-York based Kalup Linzy is more Vaginal Davis than a ‘Paris is Burning’ starlet, more Judy la Bruce (Bruce’s alter-ego) than Hedwig. But it cannot be denied that all of…

Scottish Arts Council funding shift causes controversy

1 May 2008

A redistribution of Scottish Arts Council funding, announced today, has readjusted the balance of financial power within the Scottish arts. Among those to benefit under the new plans are: Arika , who run experimental music festivals Instal and Kill…

Alison Watt - The dark fold

The dark fold

27 Feb 2007

If the substance of all painting is light, then artist Alison Watt has got a dark sense of humour. Perhaps best known for her luminous oil paintings of shapely white calico fabrics and creamy brocade drapes, Watt has quietly spent two years creating her…

Chinese Contemporary Art - Asking for It

8 May 2008

China has become something of a cause célèbre in contemporary art market circles. Tales abound of international collectors swooping in to snap up entire bodies of work, leaving artists with empty studios and considerably enriched bank accounts. Whether…

Jonathan Monk

8 May 2008

INSTALLATION, SCULPTURE, PAINTING Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 18 May ‘Something No Less Important Than Nothing’ and ‘Nothing No Less Important Than Something’ are the first Scottish shows by Jonathan Monk in a decade, though actually it’s the same…

Douglas Gordon

Opposites attract

10 Oct 2006

I’m sitting in front of a blank screen, worrying about writing a piece on Douglas Gordon. I’m clear what I want to say: I hope to persuade sceptics and wavering readers that Gordon is one of the most interesting artists working anywhere in the world.

Interview - Zatorski

8 May 2008

David Pollock Why do you both refer to yourselves just as Zatorski, and not speak about your relationship? Zatorski We like the anonymity of it, really. There’s a pair of us, we work together, but otherwise we like the sexlessness and impersonality…

Alasdair Gray

24 Apr 2008

Sometimes it’s more fun to ignore the explanatory gallery text and have a good look at the work. This seems an obvious enough way of dealing with art objects, but usually makes for lazy viewing and reviewing on the part of the critic. But it is…

007 Licensed to thrill at ECA retrospective

1 Nov 2007

A rare life study of Sir Sean Connery has been included in the Edinburgh College of Art Centenary Exhibition, Ten Decades, at the capital’s City Art Centre. The oil on canvas, which captures the star in barely there underwear, was painted by…

Robert Ryman

25 Jul 2006

Alexander Kennedy looks at the history of Minimalism in relation to an exhibition of Robert Ryman's white canvases from the early 1960s to the present day. Every minimalist painting is an uncompromising contradiction. The creative act appears to…

Ladyfest

24 Apr 2008

ARTS FESTIVAL Various venues, Edinburgh, Sun 4 May–Sun 1 Jun Ruby-red lips, set perms and Avon panstick. Not the traditional image of a feminist – certainly not the popular, laddish stereotype of a feminist. However, Ladyfest, Edinburgh’s first…

Radiance

15 Nov 2007

LIGHT INSTALLATION Various locations, Glasgow city centre, Fri 23–Sun 25 Nov As the nights draw in, Glasgow City Council is flooding the dark skies with light, filling the streets with large-scale light installations by some of the most successful…

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.

Richard Long

3 Jul 2007

When art exited the gallery in the 1960s, the street outside became a theatre for performances and an arena for installations - a move that simultaneously questioned the sanctity of the art object and the white cube that protected it. Some artists opted…

Neil Clements: Paranoid

SouthSide Studios, Fridge Gallery, Glasgow (viewing by appointment Sat 14-Sun 29 Apr)

23 Apr 2007

PAINTING AND INSTALLATION The small, dimly lit Fridge gallery acts like a mausoleum for Glasgow-based Neil Clements to create a painting, light and sound installation that takes an image of Op Art heroine Bridget Riley and the emergence of the…

Chicks on Speed/Douglas Gordon

Chicks on Speed

11 Nov 2006

According to Chicks on Speed, the art star recipe is a simple one: ‘stir in a concept, technology as well, whip in some finance and a pinch of cocaine, add in a harmless scandal and you’ve got a media plan’. In spite of all this fashionable…

Craig Mulholland

28 Feb 2008

In an exhibition that spans three venues, and will morph into an even larger installation in Bristol later this year, Craig Mulholland’s Grandes et Petites Machines, which comprises sculptures, constructed ‘paintings’ and films, fills the Mackintosh…

Tom Phillips - Word and image

15 Nov 2007

In 1966 the artist Tom Phillips went on a shopping expedition in Peckham, casually looking for a book to play with and adapt. Chance led him to a copy of WH Mallock’s A Human Document, an obscure and relatively forgotten Victorian novel, which the…

Made in Scotland

9 Aug 2007

Think of Scotland’s most famous traditional exports and what comes to mind? While in reality they may now be as diverse as the people living within its boundaries, Scotland still sometimes struggles to escape the clichés – tartan, whisky, misty…

Group Show: Lutz Fezer, Kevin Hutcheson & Clunie Reid

Transmission, Glasgow, until Sat 12 May

23 Apr 2007

WORK ON PAPER A grid work of duct tape only heightens the sense of fetishisation across Clunie Reid’s ‘Something Bold, Something Insane, Something Snivelled, Something True’ that pulls you in from the street and into a flood of familiar imagery at…

Venice Biennale

The big four

29 Jan 2007

As one of the most varied line-ups that Scotland has presented at this year’s biennale, Doggerfisher’s Lucy Skaer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Louise Hopkins and Charles Avery will head out to the Scottish Palazzo Zenobio to make new work for their…

Andrew Sunley Smith - Migratory Projects

Andrew Sunley Smith - Migratory Projects

10 Oct 2006

INSTALLATION, PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM Migratory Projects, by Australian artist Andrew Sunley Smith, loosely explores migration and survival, via records of journeys through Australia. Along with documentary photographs, items from the journeys are…

Jim Lambie: Forever Changes

24 Apr 2008

SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Mon 29 Sep Lambie seems to be an ideal choice for the Gallery of Modern Art’s contribution to the Glasgow International, particularly given his established international reputation yet…

Adel Abdessemed: Trust Me

24 Apr 2008

REVIEW VIDEO, DRAWING AND INSTALLATION The Common Guild, Glasgow until Sat 7 Jun One of Adel Abdessemed’s videos was rejected by the Gi’s committee for this exhibition due to its excessive violence. This further cemented his reputation as an artist…

Top art exhibitions to look out for

10 Sep 2007

Edinburgh Picasso on Paper See panel. Dean Gallery, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh, 0131 624 6200, until Sun 23 Sep. Ian McCulloch Drawings, paintings and woodcuts spanning the artist’s forty year career. RSA, The Mound, Edinburgh, 0131…

Martin Boyce

Martin Boyce:

27 Mar 2007

SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION There is a well documented shift in American art from the late 50s to the 70s with artists creating work that slots right into the machine that is the museum like a mass produced cog. Large, hard-edged paintings and minimalist…

Jurergen Teller – Awailable

Jurergen Teller - Awailable

27 Feb 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY Being held up as a revolutionary is too often a bittersweet plaudit, as for every voice championing your revolutionary zeal there are others queuing up to stake their claim first or rubbish the argument. Such praise has cast no shadow on…

Robert Mapplethorpe

25 Jul 2006

Robert Mapplethorpe's images went beyond his famous homoerotic photos: he also made portraits of glam 1980s New Yorkers. Why the different styles? Martin Caiger-Smith unzips the devilish conundrum that is Mapplethorpe. Close your eyes and think…

From Sickert to Gertler: Modern British Art from Boxted House

10 Apr 2008

PAINTING/WORKS ON PAPER NGMA, Edinburgh, until Sun 22 Jun This exhibition celebrates the lives of Bobby and Natalie Bevan, whose Essex home Boxted House contained numerous works by prominent 20th century modernists. It also showcases the work of…

Edinburgh College of Art 2008 Fashion Show Announced

7 Mar 2008

Edinburgh College of Art yesterday announced the dates of their 2008 Fashion Show which will showcase the latest tailoring by graduating students. The annual event, which has been running for over 50 years, will take place on Wednesday 7 and Friday 9…

Monika Sosnowska: Display

29 Nov 2007

INSTALLATION / SCULPTURE Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 8 Dec Stripping architecture of its purpose and concentrating purely on the aesthetic possibilities of public space, the work of Monika Sosnowska plays games with the formalities of…

Roman Signer: Works

1 Nov 2007

Roman Signer’s sculptural happenings, devoid as they are of nostalgia, reference or history, are usually received with a marvellous grin. Conventional narrative is displaced by simple Signer happenings such as a floating plastic bag, a rolling barrel.

Pale Carnage: Group Show

17 Jul 2007

SCULPTURE, INSTALLATION, FILM PALE CARNAGE: GROUP SHOW DCA, Dundee, until Sun 2 Sep (Image: This Drinking Alone by Tom Burr) Pale Carnage takes its title from Ezra Pound’s poem ‘April’, written in 1915. Michael Bracewell’s catalogue…

Hanneline Visnes

22 May 2007

PAINTING (Picture: Possessions) Belgian-born, Glasgow-based artist Hanneline Visnes’ paintings record the tension between abstraction and representation, pattern and spontaneity - a play of opposites that has come to characterise a slightly…

The Graffiti Project

22 May 2007

If you stand on the 45th floor of the tallest building in downtown Sao Paulo, the chaotic concrete jungle stretches in all directions as far as the eye can see. The energy and traffic fumes produced by this Brazilian city’s 18m inhabitants create a haze…

Simon Periton

The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Feb

29 Jan 2007

WORK ON PAPER It is easy to find superficial anti-art and anti-aesthetic urges in Simon Periton’s spray painted collages and assemblages on show at The Modern Institute. The materials he takes his inspiration from appear to have been ripped from…

Anna Barriball

The Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Oct

27 Oct 2006

PHOTOGRAPHY, SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION ‘Untitled (Wallpaper)’, Barriball’s first drawing on display here, is a heavy-handed graphite rubbing on tracing paper recently taken from the Ingleby Gallery’s wallpapered wall. This intimate relationship with…

Lucy McKenzie

Goodbye Ms McKenzie

27 Oct 2006

It surely wont be long until Scotland sees a major retrospective of Lucy McKenzie’s career so far. The work chosen for her exhibition, Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem (and sublet) acts as an excellent selection of recent work from an oeuvre that continues…

Ron Mueck

25 Jul 2006

David Pollock goes in search of sculptor Ron Mueck and comes up against a wall of silence. As one of the National Galleries of Scotland's Autumn programme's flagship shows, this display of work by the Australian-born, London-based Ron Mueck is…

Maternity: Images of Motherhood

24 Apr 2008

PAINTING, PRINT, SCULPTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 22 Jun This exhibition takes us down the well-trodden path of ‘maternity in art’ and, for the most part, succeeds in eliciting ideas beyond the…

Ernst Caramelle

24 Apr 2008

PAINTING AND MIXED MEDIA Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 17 May Constructed from arrangements of geometric shapes, Caramelle’s paintings exhibit a judicious use of colour, which he uses to manipulate the illusion of perspective and space. While these…

Interview - David Sillars

27 Mar 2008

Alexander Kennedy Can you tell us briefly about your new work? David Sillars Well it’s an evolving show; the pictures and the installation will be changing. Most of the pieces just now are about that continuing enquiry into our experience of…

Nick Evans and Tony Swain

28 Feb 2008

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 20 Apr Two Glasgow-based artists have been brought together and seemingly linked by their aptitude for and interest in the process of making. It gives this exhibition an appealing rawness…

Tom Phillips: A Humument

29 Nov 2007

An exhibition depicting how Phillips transformed an obscure Victorian novel (A Human Document by WH Mallock) into a postmodern masterpiece. A Humument is widely regarded as one of the most successful and influential artist’s books of the last 50…

Keith Farquhar

15 Nov 2007

ARTIST-CURATED SHOW Embassy, Edinburgh, until Sun 18 Nov Blurring the line between curation and creation, this new show by Edinburgh artist Keith Farquhar exists – as the artist himself states – to serve as ‘advertisements’ for the work of Henri…

Tom Phillips

Big picture

1 Nov 2007

Tom Phillips Widely considered a touchstone of postmodernism, Tom Phillips’ artistic project, ‘A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel’, has achieved cult status since its initial publication in 1970. One day, Phillips went into a book shop with the…

Merchant City Festival

20 Sep 2007

We’re not short of festivals in Scotland. The months between April and November have begun to feel like one of those Strip the Willows that happen at particularly drunken céilidhs, where you’re buffeted relentlessly between cultural events and…

Hitlist - The best Festival art

16 Aug 2007

Richard Long: Walking and Marking As one of this country’s important land artists, long takes over the SNGMA with works that record and relate to his treks around the world. Paintings and photographs fill the gallery, as sculptures and land 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…

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…

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

Alex Frost

18 Jun 2007

Alexander Kennedy What work will you be showing at the Project Room? Alex Frost I’m showing two billboard scale mosaics (6 x 12 foot), one is being shown in the project room, the other is going outside on a wall in the hidden gardens. On one of the…

Body Parts 3

RSA, Edinburgh, run ended

13 Mar 2007

PERFORMANCE The essence of performance art is its unpredictability. From the medium’s rise in the 1960s and 70s with early shock tactics, such as artist Chris Burden’s infamous ‘Shoot’ where the artist was shot in the arm at close range, to work like…

Sarah Cameron

27 Nov 2006

An exhibition of landscape and seascape paintings by the Edinburgh-based artist, showing work inspired by Cameron’s recent travels from the North of Scotland to Greece and Iran.

Artbeat

Gossip, chat and rumour from the gallery floor

27 Oct 2006

Here’s one for your Moleskin diaries: Abstract artist Sean Scully will be in conversation with Paul Bonaventura at the National Galleries of Scotland, Friday 17 November. The meeting of minds will take place in the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, from…

Tracey Moffat - Adventures

3 Aug 2006

Tracey Moffat says that if she weren’t making art she’d be running around slashing car tyres with a butcher’s knife. And, in renouncing her crude meat-cleaver aspirations, this Australian artist has developed an altogether more powerful arsenal: the…

Submissions wanted for Diesel Wall 2008

28 Apr 2008

Applications are being sought from 'creative, inspired' people for Diesel Wall 2008. The scheme seeks design ideas for walls based in prominent urban environments around the world, with the winners' work going up on a wall in Manchester, Barcelona…

Tracey Emin show fails to secure a sponsor

23 Apr 2008

A retrospective of work by Tracey Emin at Edinburgh's Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art this August has failed to secure a sponsor, it's been reported. The National Galleries' other shows of the summer, Impressionism and Scotland and a display of…

Arctic Circus and Skylights

16 Apr 2008

Edinburgh Printmakers seem to be inviting comparison between two solo exhibitions exploring Northern light, relying on the cantilever of their difference. But it’s the common thread of exploration that elevates both. Lithographer Gill Tyson’s…

Street + Gallery

National Gallery Complex, until Sun 4 May

10 Apr 2008

We walk past them everyday. Some of us slow down briefly and spare a few coins. But how many of us slow down and spare a thought for their hopes, dreams and concerns. For the ‘Street + Gallery’ outreach exhibition The National Galleries of Scotland…

David Sillars

10 Apr 2008

Exploring routes through pure painting, abstraction and mainstream modernism, Glasgow-based artist Sillars evokes a quasi-mystical milieu within paintings whose subjects range from Tibetan icons to distorted post-urban landscapes. Glasgow…

Torsten Lauschmann

27 Mar 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS, INSTALLATION AND SCULPTURE GoMA, Glasgow, until Mon 26 May It’s difficult to pin down Glasgow-based Torsten Lauschmann’s work. All attempts to create a narrative or to find some kind of justification or single intention fail. This is the…

Luke Fowler: Bogman Palmjaguar

13 Mar 2008

In his new 30-minute film, titled after an eccentric subject who sees himself as being in symbolic union with the great cat, Glasgow filmmaker Luke Fowler manages to combine measured storytelling with a readjusted idea of documentary realism. Bogman…

Anthony d'Offay donates £125 million contemporary art collection to Scotland and the Tate

27 Feb 2008

The donation of a major new national collection of contemporary art valued at £125 million was announced this morning at a press briefing in Edinburgh's Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. ‘Artist Rooms’ was created through a donation made by…

Nick Evans and Tony Swain

14 Feb 2008

It seems Paul Nesbit can do no wrong at Inverleith House in the Botanic Gardens. The curator has a back catalogue of excellent exhibitions under his belt, having shown work by some of the most respected national and international artists. Following a…

Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius

14 Feb 2008

Inspired by the centenary of his birth in 2002, this exhibition is the most comprehensive overview of Adams’ career ever exhibited in the UK. Adams was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, best known for his visionary…

Anthea Hamilton and Thomas Kratz

4 Jan 2008

INSTALLED PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES Mary Mary, Glasgow, until 26 Jan There is a history of sexed-up artistic collaborations in 20th century art, a long line of cosy twosomes that come together for occasional aesthetic satisfaction. The work on show by…

Joan Eardley

4 Jan 2008

PAINTING Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until Sun 13 Jan The peculiar psychology which leads many notable artists’ works to only truly be appreciated after they have died is hard to explain, with the premature passing of an artist lending an…

Capital in the frame for Ansel Adams exhibition

13 Nov 2007

Edinburgh has been selected as the only UK venue to host an exhibition of work by acclaimed US landscape photographer Ansel Adams next year. More than 150 original images from New York’s international photography museum will be hosted by the City Art…

Da Vinci’s Last Supper gets 16 billion pixel makeover

29 Oct 2007

An image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which is more than a thousand times more detailed than a picture taken with a typical digital camera, has been posted on the internet. The 16 billion pixel image of the 15th century work will allow art…

Alasdair Gray - art review

4 Oct 2007

To cherry pick from one’s own oeuvre sounds delightfully painful, a self indulgent task requiring sticky fingers and a good eye. It should be someone else’s enviable job, especially when the artist in question is Alasdair Gray, one of Scotland’s most…

Gary Fabian Miller & Edmund de Wall

4 Oct 2007

Repetition, when performed by the human hand, will always be peppered with tiny differences. This is evidence of man’s failing against the machine, yet there is, of course, unexpected pleasure to be found in human error. It is a subject of fascination…

Hitlist - the best exhibitions

23 Aug 2007

Picasso on Paper An exhibition of drawings, prints and illustrated books spanning the career of one of the 20th century’s most important artists. Picasso’s early work gave those artists who followed him a route into pure abstraction, with his later…

William Eggleston

5 Questions

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe Eggleston’s show this year? Even William Eggleston loves it. 4 exhibitions you really want to see at the Art Festival? Richard Wright, the Andy Warhol films, Jock McFadyen and Amazing Rare Things. 3 things that you…

Alex Hartley

1 Aug 2007

London-based artist Alex Hartley has covered the stern exterior of the Fruitmarket with a photographic replication of itself, containing maps of the many routes he recently managed to trace across it.

Aernout Mik

22 May 2007

(Picture: Scapegoat) At first, it might seem surprising that Dutch artist Aernout Mik claims to care little about art. He argues that you might as well get rid of the words ‘experiencing art’. Yet, in going against his orders and experiencing the…

Wael Shawky

Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 31 Mar-Sat 21 A

27 Mar 2007

VIDEO INSTALLATION Collective Gallery’s exhibition program resumes with a solo show of work by Egypt born Wael Shawky. Shawky’s work is multifarious but deals primarily with culture and religion, juxtaposing, comparing and contrasting one with the…

Simon Carroll

Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgo

13 Mar 2007

CERAMICS, PAINTING AND PRINTS The alchemy and leap of imagination that’s involved when throwing, decorating and firing a humble pot is not to be underestimated. Each glaze - whether ice-cream pink or emerald green - begins life as inert grey swill…

Life drawing meets burlesque erotica

Gothic horror picture show

12 Feb 2007

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m loitering outside the entrance to Edinburgh’s newest art class trying not to look too much like a pervert. Some passing tourists catch sight of the Dr Sketchy’s poster advertising ‘Drawing & Drinks & Dames & Dudes’ and I…

David Shrigley

DCA, Dundee, until Sun 21 Jan 2007

20 Dec 2006

DRAWING, SCULPTURE AND VIDEO David Shrigley’s drawings are synonymous. He is famous for absurdities with a helping of schoolboy humour. But it is his sculptures that are most memorable in this mini-retrospective. Cast aside the ‘but is it art?…

Callum Innes - From Memory

Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 19 Nov

11 Nov 2006

PAINTING Let’s just get it out the way quickly - there are some bad paintings in this mini-retrospective of Edinburgh-based Callum Innes at the Fruitmarket Gallery. Well, two at a push. This exhibition continues to receive such high praise (he’s both…

Ingleby Gallery moves to new premises in its 10th year

1 May 2008

Edinburgh's Ingleby Gallery is to celebrate its 10th anniversary with a move to 15 Calton Road, a new premises behind Waverley Station. The move will take place in July. Spread over three floors and 6000 square feet, the new Ingleby will be the…

Group Show: Run 'Run'

24 Apr 2008

SCULPTURE, FILM AND DRAWING The Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, until Sat 3 May There has always been an indubitable relationship between art and science. A charcoal mark made on a cave wall is the result of various scientific…

National Museum of Scotland to celebrate start of renovations

24 Apr 2008

The National Museum of Scotland will celebrate the start of the £46.4m Royal Museum Project renovations with a weekend of entertainment. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers will headline the event, which runs from Sat 26–Sun 27 Apr. See www.nms.ac.uk/celebration

Glasgow International Art Festival

10 Apr 2008

‘What we’ve tried to do this year is suggest a loose theme of ‘public and private’, which runs through many of the curated shows,’ says Francis McKee, director of the biannual Glasgow International, talking me through the 70 plus exhibitions, public…

Enrico David: Ultra Paste

10 Apr 2008

INSTALLATION, SCULPTURE AND PAINTINGS Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 10 May It’s hard to believe the ejaculatory inference of the title of this exhibition is unintended, because the whole purpose of ‘Ultra Paste’ (the show’s key work) seems…

Ansel Adams gallery expands opening hours

27 Mar 2008

Following the success of the Ansel Adams retrospective at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, the gallery has extended its opening times to meet demand for the show. The Centre was due to re-establish Sunday opening from Sunday 6 April and has now brought…

Let Me Show You Some Things: The Magic Lantern, Robert Orchardson and Sarah Tripp

13 Mar 2008

This collaborative installation brings together a large collection of films previously shown at The Magic Lantern (an independent film night at the CCA), a new film by Sarah Tripp and sculptures by Robert Orchardson. The short film format is ideally…

Lotte Gertz

28 Feb 2008

PRINTING, DRAWING AND PAINTING Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 1 Mar It can be difficult to form a strong opinion about work that comes across as insubstantial and ‘bitty’. This may seem an obvious thing to say about the collages on show by Lotte Gertz…

Ansel Adams: Celebration of Genius

31 Jan 2008

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY The name Ansel Adams is virtual shorthand for landscape photography at its finest. A shy child prodigy, home-schooled and self-taught to read and play music at the age of 12, the teenaged Californian first experienced…

Alan Michael: Touch Void

17 Jan 2008

PAINTING Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 19 Jan–Sat 1 Mar Graduating from Glasgow School of Art’s MFA course in 1998, 40-year-old painter Alan Michael, who remains based in the city, has built a steady reputation, with last year’s solo shows…

Spencer Sweeney

17 Jan 2008

PAINTING The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 23 Feb New York-based painter Spencer Sweeney’s art seems to be suffering from a personality crisis, with stylistic approaches, materials and assumed personas thrown into a big American Magimix…

Carol Rhodes

13 Dec 2007

The largest survey of Rhodes’ paintings to date, this exhibition covers the past 15 years of her career, exploring the artist’s distinctive approach to landscape and intense investigation into her medium. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art…

Group show: Re-make/Re-model

13 Dec 2007

Contemporary art curators and gallery owners no longer merely show work because it’s good but because it somehow justifies itself through weighty themes and explication. This is art’s loss. The exhibition of work by Linder, Sophie MacPherson, Babette…

Quentin Blake

29 Nov 2007

ILLUSTRATION Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, until Tue 1 Jan When you take an illustration away from the text it was created for, the lone image can quickly become a very dire prospect or can leave the viewer scratching their head…