Rosalie Doubal

Kelly Nipper's Black Forest show set for Glasgow International

Vast installation incorporating dance, ceramics, textiles and print

21 Mar 2012

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

21 Mar 2012

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

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…

Vault Art Glasgow is an inventive new art market

Featuring artists Dawn Youll, Ellie Harrison and Risa Tsunegi

24 Aug 2011

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

17 Aug 2011

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

16 Aug 2011

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

16 Aug 2011

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

14 Aug 2011

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

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…

Interview: US artist Ingrid Calame

Transferring transfers marks and cracks from ground outside to gallery walls

3 Aug 2011

‘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

15 Nov 2010

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

6 Oct 2010

(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

1 Sep 2010

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

23 Aug 2010

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

22 Aug 2010

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

19 Aug 2010

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

19 Aug 2010

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

18 Aug 2010

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

16 Aug 2010

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

16 Aug 2010

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

12 Aug 2010

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

12 Aug 2010

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…

Hito Steyerl: In Free Fall

Sophisticated film captures the global economic crisis

11 Aug 2010

A theoretician, artist and filmmaker interested in documentary strategies in contemporary art, Hito Steyerl’s work focuses on the intersection between politics and aesthetics, specifically the status of images as they circulate globally. Steyerl is a…

Joan Mitchell

Arresting display of abstract paintings

11 Aug 2010

Inverleith House really is a special place. An 18th century mansion reserved entirely for the display of art, its beautifully proportioned light-filled rooms enjoy unmatched views of rolling lawns and botanicals. The works that are exhibited within its…

Dave Hill

Navigates a fine path between the crass and the classy

11 Aug 2010

US comic Hill adopts a shy frat boy persona to chronicle the wide-eyed travels of an unsuccessful rock band of thirtysomethings in Japan. Endearingly conveying the marvel of garage band ambition, Hill’s relentless desire to rock provides a solid basis…

Jeremy Lion

Soused kids entertainer goes green

9 Aug 2010

Ruddy-faced Jeremy Lion uses the fertile format of the children’s educational play to bind an alcoholic slapstick to lyrical ditties detailing the dangers of global warming. It’s a finely tailored package of physical, musical and cynical gags that’s 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…

Profusion of painting at 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival

Richard Wright, Joan Mitchell and Julie Roberts head up painting programme

4 Aug 2010

Painting has inspired some epic declarations over the years. In the 1960s Donald Judd declared the medium dead. In 2005 Young British Artist Damien Hirst advised people that they were more important than paintings. And this year, in light of the…

Artist Martin Creed presents dance piece Ballet Work No.1020

Turner Prize-winning visual artist gets to the pointe at Fringe

3 Aug 2010

Through with the usual art materials – paper, paint, bronze (and in this instance vomit, excrement and light bulbs) – Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed has turned his hand to the human body. Lauded for his Work No. 850 (2008), in which athletes…

Jerry Della Femina - From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor

29 Jul 2010

(Canongate) ‘I know guys who would make you fly Nazi Airlines in a minute or get you to pack your voodoo kit for a little trip to Haiti,’ declares self-styled mad man Jerry Della Femina, in this re-release of the rambling 1970s cult classic. Although…

Edinburgh Art Festival surrealist exhibition Another World leaves potential unfulfilled

Impressive, if surprisingly straightforward, collection of surrealist works

27 Jul 2010

For a source so rich in departures for radical flights of enquiry, this presentation of surrealist paintings, objects, journals and sculptures is alarmingly straightforward. By marrying a host of mesmerising works by the likes of Dali and Magritte to a…

Martin Creed: Down Over Up - Edinburgh Art Festival

The Turner Prize winner on his Festival work

15 Jul 2010

Renaissance Man Martin Creed is on the Fringe and at the Book Festival as well as stirring up the art world this August. Rosalie Doubal hears from an artist who wants to fully explore the process of living

Kei Miller - The Last Warner Woman

24 Jun 2010

(Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Skipping effortlessly through a host of complex characters, with this searching and lyrical work Kei Miller achieves an incredibly engaging range of voice from the outset. Gently dropping through three generations of Jamaican…

Torsten Lauschmann: Patchwork Cinema

23 Jun 2010

Lauschmann’s unassuming new film work ‘Stuntmen in Skirts’ has to be one of the most enthralling moving images currently on display in Edinburgh. Impressive, considering there’s a film festival going on. The artist has animated a small portion of a soft…

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…

Gerard Byrne: A Thing Is a Hole in a Thing It Is Not

21 Apr 2010

Newly commissioned, the title for this multiple screen video installation by Irish artist Gerard Byrne is taken from a statement by American minimalist Carl André. Lauded for his fictional reconstructions articulated in relation to modernist aesthetics…

Douglas Gordon: 24 Hour Psycho Back and Forth and To and Fro

21 Apr 2010

‘If I was alone in here,’ one visitor is overheard to admit, ‘I would touch myself.’ Perhaps the exclamation is a little loud, and extreme, but there is undoubtedly something unendingly seductive about Gordon’s characteristically dark…

Glasgow International - Happenings and performances

16 Apr 2010

Whether reflecting or informing current art world vogues, the plethora of events and performances in the Glasgow International programme assures an energy that will distinguish it from the conventional biennial format. Presenting mock symposiums…

Lauren Gault: Lacks

31 Mar 2010

Lauren Gault's sculptural and film works have an impressively assured air for an artist working at such an early point in her career. Pastel-hued objects, both lumpen and ornate, command the Duchy’s perfectly proportioned gallery space, comprising a…

Kill Your Timid Notion 2010 seeks to rewrite the rules of engagement

17 Feb 2010

This experimental sound and image festival has been disrupting the peace in Dundee for seven riotous, challenging and boundary-pushing years. For 2010, however, the artists are seeking something straightforward from their audiences – participation.

Peter Liversidge - The Thrill of It All

Work in process

10 Feb 2010

‘I propose to give a motivational speech to Scottish business leaders.’ Hand-typed, darkly humorous and posted to the gallery, this proposition typifies London-based artist Peter Liversidge’s now established way of working. It sits among a host of 159…

Toby Paterson: Consensus and Collapse

1 Feb 2010

The fear of knocking over an exhibit – along with mistaking an artwork for a bench or a light switch for a sculpture – is a point of comic reference frequently bandied around in relation to the physical experience of contemporary art galleries. This…

Alexis Marguerite Teplin - One foot in the past

26 Jan 2010

Voluptuous, salacious and lavishly overshooting the decorative, Alexis Marguerite Teplin’s paintings are as visually arresting as they are referentially dense. Boundless pleasures can be sourced from the unpacking of their rich montages, and the…

New York state of mind

7 Jan 2010

Nestled at the heart of Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City is a duality. Leading with the tagline, ‘Lethem does Manhattan’, the Brooklynite’s latest owes much to a slight, yet significant switch in New York perspective. ‘Manhattan has a quality of being far…

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…

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…

BP Portrait Award 2009

24 Nov 2009

For some years now, the BP Portrait Award has proved to be one of the most popular exhibitions in the National Galleries’ calendar – people just love it. In terms of the contemporary Scottish visual art scene, however, portraiture is a rarity. So what…

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…

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…

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…

Theatre of the absurd: Lara Favaretto

Considering the work of the Italian artist and her 'fun machines'

15 Oct 2009

Artistic intervention ‘Confetti Canyon’ lasts a couple of hours during which three hand-triggered canons shower the awaiting crowds with bright clouds of confetti. This, Italian artist Lara Favaretto’s seminal work, offers its viewers an artwork that’s…

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…

Dan Atkinson: Death by One Thousand Pricks

Compelling and entertaining thesis on the current state of Britain

1 Sep 2009

Dan Atkinson is sick of pretending. He's through with being nice, kaput with repressing his desires, and done with right-wing 'pricks' that moan and whine on radio call-ins. Charmingly presenting the stage as a realm in which the truth runs free, and…

Scottish Paintings: Old Masters to Contemporary

Great works undermined by staid and debilitating presentation

26 Aug 2009

This closed and muted historical survey covers a time span of around 400 years and reaches from the dark, still-life ages of William Gow Ferguson in 1632, to the rarely exciting contemporary abstract paintings of Callum Innes. Chronicling Scottish…

John Bellany’s: A Celtic Voyage

Cramped but impressive selection of works by Scottish artist

24 Aug 2009

Scottish painter John Bellany’s East Coast hometown of Port Seton, a small seafaring community where fishing was a way of life and Calvinism blew fear through the streets, informs the artist’s oeuvre. Fish, gannets, swans, playing cards and boats…

Zoo Lodge

Shoddy writing and generally weak performances

24 Aug 2009

Inflammatory drivel about a meddling British couple’s troubled stay in a Johannesburg hostel. Insult, slur and damaging secrets are awkwardly tossed between an Afrikaans handyman, a Zimbabwean refugee, a philandering hostel owner, his Spanish lover and…

The Lamplighter's Lament

Charming play about a lonely widower

23 Aug 2009

Effortlessly charming visual theatre about a lonely lamplighter and his lament for the wife he lost to the sea. Three actors and a puppet take the character’s form, while music, unusual lighting and limited props colour their laden movements. The…

Frozen

Brazen examination of the murderous psyche

21 Aug 2009

The finer subtleties of Bryony Lavery’s Tony-nominated play are here bled for shock and effect, but there is only so much musical blare and spluttered swearing that one cramped audience can take. An impressive initial sense of unease soon wears off, and…

Sara Maitland

The cultural history of quiet contemplation

20 Aug 2009

‘We generally tend to be very romantic about silence. People say, “wouldn’t it be lovely to be silent”, but then they don’t do anything to make it happen.’ Having hitherto led a noisy family-filled life as both a prize-winning novelist and outspoken…

Peter Duncan’s Dark and Dangerous

Safe, dated, yet surprisingly humble

19 Aug 2009

Following an encounter with the keepers of heaven and hell, early 80s Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan has one hour to justify his career and deliver himself from purgatory. Tied together by audience participation, tomfoolery with a video screen, and…

Jane and Louise Wilson

Doubling, slippage and a mix of the personal with the historical

14 Aug 2009

At once domineering and illusory, the large black box construct that has been built within the gallery to house central film work ‘Unfolding the Aryan Papers’ demands and entices in equal measure. Designed to impose a necessary negotiation with the…

Reveal/Reset

Ingenious web-based creations that sadly lack the ability to connect

14 Aug 2009

Designed to support the development of creative applications that challenge the notions of what networked or web-based digital creativity can be, the Alt-W Fund has financed new artworks by nine Scottish-based artists. New media projects include FOUND’s…

Unit 46

Thin walls and solitary frustrations

13 Aug 2009

This Australian two-hander visits the familiar territory of frustrated flat dwellers with a wrought examination of paranoid loner Tim and frustrated teacher Diane, living above and below each other in a claustrophobic unit block. Communicating only by…

The Discovery of Spain

Fascinating exhibition of British and Spanish art demands a long look

5 Aug 2009

Besides proffering a coloured selection of chapters from an intriguing art historical narrative, this major exhibition presents some seriously affecting works of art. Didacticism aside, simply gazing at these terrifically moving paintings – Goyas, El…

The Discovery of Spain in Edinburgh

Fascinating and beautiful exhibition of British and Spanish art demands a good, long look

23 Jul 2009

Besides proffering a coloured selection of chapters from an intriguing art historical narrative, this major exhibition presents some seriously affecting works from the likes of Goya, El Greco, Zurburan, Morillo, Velázquez and Picasso.

Conman - a comic thriller by Richard Asplin

23 Jul 2009

Comic memorabilia shop owner, young family man, and general nerd Neil Martin finds himself in a rollicking British fix: the stock-filled basement of his shop has been flooded and he’s been less than scrupulous with his insurance payments. Enter…

The Creative World of Alan Davie

A showcase of the Scot's artistic, musical and literary pursuits

13 Jul 2009

Consistently named as one of Scotland’s most prolific living artists, Alan Davie has led a creative life of incredible reach and depth. Following an education in the late 1930s at the Edinburgh College of Art, Davie’s widespread travel, which enabled…

Jane and Louise Wilson

Marking two decades of iconic locations and contentious movie-making

13 Jul 2009

Whilst the enigmatic film works of the Wilson Twins often split and polarise critical opinion, the pair continue to be noted as UK art’s most recognised purveyors of the moving image. For over 20 years, they’ve been lauded for making films set in iconic…

Ebony Bones - Bone of My Bones

25 Jun 2009

(Sunday Best) Whilst the DIY styling of afro-punk upstart Ebony Bones rightly aspires to the anti-glam perfection practised and polished by the likes of Santigold and M.I.A. the resulting sounds and gaud flirt dangerously with the resemblance of a…

Neil Clements: Built. Lacking

14 May 2009

Formerly lauded for his painterly investigations into modernism and death metal, Glasgow-based artist Neil Clements evinces traces of a finely distilled practice. Gone are the guitars and idols; only Clements’ interest in formalist art production…

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…

Ben Moor - More Trees to Climb

16 Apr 2009

Comedy and theatre writer Ben Moor isn’t cool. He can’t be described as edgy, cutting or, even on the flipside, geek chic. Too wholesome to be indie, and too intellectual for personal whimsy, Moor’s seemingly fad-free short stories shun the fripperies…

Re-make

11 Mar 2009

Empty shop fronts - woeful signs of the sorry economic times or glass-fronted oases awaiting artistic appropriation? For young creatives, who generally tend to be slip streaming the crunch in a blissful state of poverty-stricken ignorance anyway, vacant…

Jonathan Owen

19 Feb 2009

SCULPTURE At Doggerfisher’s 2001 inaugural show Edinburgh College of Art graduate Jonathan Owen exhibited a series of irreverent yet deeply ornate cut-outs from lads’ mags, manuals and books. Menacingly splicing together nuclear armour with penises…

Lily Allen - It’s Not Me, It’s You

19 Feb 2009

(EMI) POP Sly satirical lyricist, or still just a fringe with an almighty gob, whatever your hopes for her second album, Lily hasn’t blossomed. Insistently banging on about boys and beans on toast, the candid exposé our nail-painting populace…

Chris Lavers - The Natural History of Unicorns

22 Jan 2009

MYTHICAL HISTORY Guess what? Unicorns never existed. And if you can bounce back from this early blow, Chris Lavers’ exploration of the unicorn myth actually makes for a strangely charming read. In arguing that although the soft white creature of our…

The Qemists - Join The Q

22 Jan 2009

DRUM & BASS AND BEYOND This debut album for Brighton-based producers The Qemists smacks of the rock and drum & bass hybrid that pushed the likes of Pendulum too far centre-field, but it’s subtler than the Aussie troupe’s dance-rock racket – and more…

Various - Somabeta 002

22 Jan 2009

ELECTRONICA Technophiles hold tight. Here come Soma with yet another mighty compilation of brand spanking new electronica talent. Right down to the artwork for this vanguard album, an innovative design plucked the Soma 2008 Artwork Competition…

Franziska Furter: Spark Erosion

8 Jan 2009

Swiss artist Franziska Furter here presents a challenging series of sophisticated conceptual works. The skin and bones of this exhibition are graphite drawings, PVC pebbles, and electrical tape sculptures, none too exciting or provocative in their own…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

Charles Avery, The Islanders: An Introduction

11 Dec 2008

REVIEW DRAWING, PAINTING AND SCULPTURE Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 15 Feb In 2004 artist Charles Avery began charting the creatures, topology and cosmology of an imaginary island. This exhibition presents his…

Guillemots: Picture House, Edinburgh, 13 November

19 Nov 2008

You’d probably have a better chance of looking cool wearing a pair of bowling shoes in a supermarket than dancing at a Guillemots gig. Tight, skilled musicians they may be, party starters they are not. Their following evidently accept this, why then…

A quiet life

13 Nov 2008

It would seem that we’ve all become a little wary of silence. The sizeable majority of British society who own mobile phones may agree. Plug in, jump online, talk in libraries, and you’re doing OK. Withdraw however, and you have issues. Accomplished…

Singles & Downloads

13 Nov 2008

It would seem that the season-savvy have been busy fashioning tracks to stay indoors to. Sofas, fine lounging and low key indie sounds are the order of the day for this fortnight’s top runners. Producer Kwes’ salutation to the slipper-set, debut solo…

Ruth Claxton: Postcards

30 Oct 2008

Rightly celebrated for her touring large-scale installation, Lands End, Claxton's presentation of nine small postcards at the Ingleby Gallery sadly disappoints compared to that sprawling installation of delightfully kitsch figures arranged atop dazzling…

Neville Rae

3 Oct 2008

For want of a little creative breathing space, new gallery partnership Sierra Metro has bravely shunned the inner-city Edinburgh gallery scene. Directors Janine Sproule and Martin Minton have appropriated a disused warehouse in the North of Edinburgh…

Black, White + Gray

4 Sep 2008

James Crump’s documentary revisits the contentious work, life and times of seminal 80s photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The artist’s legacy is re-examined through a close study of the life of his partner and patron, the curator and collector, Sam…

Treasure Hunt

Rosalie Doubal leads a team around the city on a scavenger hunt in the name of art

21 Aug 2008

9am City Art Centre Equipped with a bike, a laptop, a compass, eight sandwiches and some anoraks, my team – a dyspraxic researcher, a father-of-one, a diehard Buckfast drinker and a token ginger – joins a long queue of eager scavengers. Neither the…

Alexander Heim: Doves

Harnessing pigeon power

21 Aug 2008

Lyrical and sophisticated, young German artist Alexander Heim’s first solo UK show exhibits a fascinating lightness of touch. Doves pivots around a video of pigeons at a London Costa Coffee branch. Exquisitely-composed photographs of fragments of…

Madame with an 'E'

21 Aug 2008

Madame is a scrawny, dirty puppet who bears an uncanny likeness to Joan Rivers. As unappealing as she may sound, the ageing showgirl's rampant filth and alcoholism has a rather endearing quality. Her puppeteer whisks her around a decaying Hollywood and…

The Shadow

21 Aug 2008

Enthusiastic acting is let down here by an over-written, confused and dizzyingly fast-paced script about a poet who loses his shadow. A barrage of contradictory metaphors dealing in the currency of light, dark, joy, greed, friend, foe and princesses…

Gamarjobat

21 Aug 2008

The playful Japanese pair deftly animate all the trappings of a silent Western, complete with a revenge killing and a big-hearted prostitute. A clever use of shiny happy plastic props and stylishly twee sound effects successfully endow the sex and guns…

Achtung Pal

21 Aug 2008

Twelve hopeful students chew, gag and gurn their way through a barrage of German and 'Schottish' accents in this dreary 1943-Nazi-occupied-Dundee-set comedy. Sparky performances from the stinky Scottish gypsy prostitute and an officer's secretary are…

The Art of Dating and Dumping

It's official: romance is dead

14 Aug 2008

Ghost tours are annoying because the part of you that secretly believes you may actually see a ghoul, is always let down. This show similarly disappoints. You are drawn to it, suspecting that it may just present you with the holy grail of practical…

Frida Kahlo: Viva La Vida

14 Aug 2008

A poised yet gutsy one-woman performance from the talented Gael Le Cornec offers a moving insight into the vibrant life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Avoiding sentimentality, Le Cornec tenderly portrays a woman struggling with physical pain and a…

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School

7 Aug 2008

I blame after-school ‘buff club’ for the prudish apprehension I felt on entering Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School. The life drawing class of my youth utterly succeeded in repressing my schoolgirl giggle. Week after week the models’ towelling gowns would…

Andrew Grassie: Painting as Document

7 Aug 2008

This survey exhibition of recent and new work by Andrew Grassie, his first major solo show in Scotland, exhibits a selection of the artist’s paintings from the past ten years. When first viewed together, this output appears terribly uniform. The…

Karl Spain

7 Aug 2008

Spain's show spins off an endearing premise: he has diabetes, but doesn't really know what it is. Regaling the crowd with down-the-pub tales of his unquenchable thirst, leg boils and an infected penis, this self-proclaimed food addict gets off to a…