Rosalie Doubal

How Glasgow and Scotland became leading forces in visual art

11 Turner prize nominations and six winners in the past 15 years

A country recognised for its commitment to supporting young visual artists and their DIY endeavours, Scotland has planted a well-earned flag on the international art map. Scooping 11 Turner prize nominations and six winners in the past 15 years, a…

A guide to the galleries and artworks of Edinburgh and Glasgow

Salvador Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ugo Rondinone and more

Rosalie Doubal picks out the best galleries and exhibition spaces, from national institutions to pop-up venues showcasing Scotland’s up-and-coming talent Glasgow is famed for its DIY exhibition culture and you’re as likely to uncover an artistic gem at…

Will Gompertz - What Are You Looking At?

The BBC Arts Editor's latest book is an accessible and entertaining guide to art history

‘It’s a fact of life,’ declares the BBC’s Arts Editor in his new book, ‘arts folk talk bollocks’. In a bid to buck this trend, Will Gompertz’s lengthy diversion through the history of modernism is a straight-talking, chronological journey across 150…

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…

Artist Matthew Darbyshire set for new Tramway show

London artists draws inspiration from Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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…

Vault Art Glasgow is an inventive new art market

Featuring artists Dawn Youll, Ellie Harrison and Risa Tsunegi

Vault is a new art fair that will take place inside an art installation, set inside an arts space, that houses artists’ studios. Like a Russian doll the event playfully peals back the dominant layers of today’s art market, to reveal independent practice…

Mystics or Rationalists?

Elegant conceptual works bend associations of the ordinary

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…

Ben Brailsford

Self-confessed geek let down by repetitive material

A bungling monologue this from a self-confessed geek and bassoonist, detailing his misfortune at being wrongly accused of aggravated trespass during the recent anti-cuts protests in London. His material is repetitive and the searing insignificance of…

Matthew Highton's Shadowed Vagary

Warm, intelligent and beautifully written tall tale

This warm, intelligent and beautifully written tall tale winds its way from an office infatuation to an apocalyptical climax featuring a fembot with an allergy to Nando’s Peri-Peri sauce, Mickey Rourke’s magic peacock and an evil Patrick Moore. Sweet…

The Two Wrongies

Confused and confusing naked double-act

It’s unclear where the poorly concealed punches in this crude cabaret of physical comedy are aimed. From five minutes into their performance, the female double-act remains in various states of undress, with predictable simulations of sex and naked…

Norman McBeath & Robert Crawford: Body Bags / Simonides

Mournful collaboration between photographer and poet

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…

Interview: US artist Ingrid Calame

Transferring transfers marks and cracks from ground outside to gallery walls

‘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…

Social Documents: The Ethics of Encounter Part 1

Film documents artist’s two-year journey across the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Screened as part of Stills’ The Ethics of Encounter programme, which comprises exhibitions, screenings and workshops exploring artists’ use of documentary processes, Renzo Martens’ feature-length filmwork Episode III Enjoy Poverty (run ended) is a work…

Roberto Bolano - The Skating Rink

(Picador) Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño’s seemingly boundless posthumous career continues to flex its muscles with this magnificent murder mystery. Centering upon the love and lust felt by three men for fallen Spanish figure skater Nuria, a triad of…

Christen Købke

This bite-sized display of around 40 paintings by 17th century Danish painter Christen Købke offers an accessible and contextualised perspective on his work. In the face of the National Galleries’ other blockbusting survey exhibits, which soar and sweep…

David O’Doherty

Mild-mannered Dublin comic returns with less song and more chat

The Casio keyboard remains but this year the mild-mannered Dublin comic returns with less song and more chat. And also more book reading, mainly from his recent publication 100 Facts About Pandas. Bung in a kaleidoscopic range of observational indie…

Carey Marx

Debunking some myths with craft and guile

A veteran Pontin’s bluecoat recounting tales of his 19-year-old magician-self, Carey Marx’ fresh and well-judged set focuses on debunking the myths of phony spoon-bending, séance-leading practitioners. Hitting a surprising tone from the off-set, his…

Plan B

Nuanced and arresting marriage of text and image

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

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…

Max and Iván

High energy, fast-paced sketches

This youthful double act presents a near-universal gung-ho set of high energy, fast-paced sketches, raucously covering everything from re-imaginings of blockbusters to advert appeals for a charity for models with eating disorders (where the only…

Jollie

Charmingly silly piece of musical comedy

Earnest and classy nautical storytelling from two consummate performers is strengthened by an evidently seasoned friendship and although the duo’s on-stage bickers begin to drag, this is a charmingly silly piece of musical comedy. Accordion, clarinet…

Matt Tiller

Uninspired musical comedy

This uninspired musical comedy from the lovely but rather outmoded Matt Tiller centres upon life’s little blips in social equilibrium: the toilet walk-in, the beach erection and saying the wrong thing after sex. This is fairly common material performed…

Shirley and Shirley

Dark twists on familiar sketch topics

With fantastic energy and physical ability, strong, simple ideas and a remarkable on-stage chemistry, sketch show duo Shirley & Shirley are surely ones to watch. Comparisons to Smack the Pony are unavoidable but by no means disparaging, and while there…

Tana French - Faithful Place

Otherwise gripping drama suffers from inconsistencies

As much a sprawling family drama as a crime novel, Tana French’s character-driven mystery has more of the life stuff – heart, family, class – than the average genre work. In following the trials of undercover Irish cop and estranged son, brother and…