Edinburgh Art Festival

Edinburgh Art Festival launches for 2013

Packed programme features talents such as Robert Montgomery, Peter Liversidge and Christine Borland

It’s no small coincidence that as the sun finally appears, the Edinburgh Art Festival has launched its programme for 2013. Colourful and smile-inducing, the programme features great venues, major new solo exhibitions and some enticing new commissions…

Edinburgh Art Festival 2012: Highlights

Surrealists, symbolists and Scottish colourists at this year's art festival

Leslie Hunter: A Life in Colour. This major study of the Scottish Colourist’s output features over 70 important works throughout his career, with pieces created in venues from Fife to France. If the life and work of Hunter is your bag, then why not also…

How to visit the Edinburgh Festival

A guide to getting the best from the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe

The phrase 'planned itinerary' might might be at odds with the spirit of chaos and wild abandon you associated with your visit to the Edinburgh Festival. The brutal truth is that shows do sell out, so book tickets to things you definitely want to see.

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…

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.

Edinburgh Art Festival 2011 highlights

David Mach, Tamsyn Challenger and Anish Kapoor among picks

David Mach. Explosive and daring exhibition of large-scale collage and sculpture works inspired by and confronting the narratives of the Bible on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the highly influential King James version. 400 Women. A…

Why Edinburgh remains unrivalled as a festival city

A huge number and variety of festivals take place each year

In 1961, a theatre director made a proposal. It was his opinion that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was getting too big. It would be much better, he said, ‘if only ten halls were licensed’. Nobody listened. Had the director been able to travel…

Party On

Our love of a good festival is by no means new. The desire to recharge – or more often, decharge our batteries – goes back to prehistoric times when people felt confused and scared by the forces of nature, so tried to keep on their good side by…

In the frame: Edinburgh Art Festival

Never one to be outshone by its more established August counterparts, the Edinburgh Art Festival has announced a roster of talent, with major exhibitions from world-renowned artists, as well as an extraordinary programme of sculpture work, at over 50…

Treasure Hunt

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

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

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…

Chad McCail

Puberty, print, perversion and compulsory education

What a remarkable and strange artist Chad McCail is. By his own admission half of his output tends to be peopled by ‘robots, zombies or wealthy parasites’, while the other half looks like loose leaves from a particularly perverse Ladybird book. Both…

Dovecot: Weaving Influences

An appreciation of the historic art of tapestry is not strictly necessary to enjoy this, one of two shows launching Dovecot as a new exhibiting space for art, craft and design. The twist here is that all the works were designed by leading modern artists…

Hugh Brady: 39

Thought-provoking installation art

The venue for this exhibition is Brady’s studio: a converted stable, which visually correlates to the photographer’s studio in Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic 1960s film Blow Up. From the starting point of the 39 on the exterior door, this is a…

The Embassy: Mutatis Mutandis

Good work, bad show

When the Embassy emerged several years ago, it was as a playful, bright-eyed young gallery with a serious interest in art, as demonstrated by the strong exhibition programme. It seemed as though Edinburgh was finally going to get an ambitious artist-run…

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

Six different, self-contained installation pieces by hugely acclaimed Canadian artist partnership Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, which run a series of gamuts, taking in culture both high and popular, film, multimedia robotics and…

5 Questions - Joanne Brown

Director of the Edinburgh Art Festival, takes stock of the programme. Five words to describe the Edinburgh Art Festival programme this year: Wide-ranging, exciting, challenging, colourful, fun. Four aspects of the EAF you’re looking forward to: Visiting…

Chad McCail

The well-revered Scottish artist has created a series of new screenprints exclusively for Edinburgh Printmakers. McCail’s deceptively bold, cartoonish graphics mask the social critique at the centre of the work, which focuses on subjects like education…

Edinburgh Art Festival

Street arts

Edinburgh residents are used to a takeover at this time of year. As hoardes of performers, artists, comedians and their assorted entourages set up a whole other city on top of theirs, the festivals can feel divorced from the realities of Edinburgh life.

Frances Richardson: Playing Against Reason

Sculpture and walk-in drawings explore the gambler’s mindset

In rationalising her new exhibition, English artist Frances Richardson finds it best to quote the wisdom of Chico Marx: ‘If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.…

The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: The Renaissance

Treasure trove of Italian masters

You wonder what Prince William was thinking when he switched courses at university – when your Grandma owns art like this, studying Art History must have been a doddle. This exhibition, the first of two from the Royal Collection’s holdings of 16th and…

What is Life?

Scottish sculptors take on biological investigation

Exploring a common interest in plants and scientific enquiry, Inverleith House curator Paul Nesbitt has drawn together works by Scottish sculptors Christine Borland, Graham Fagen and Simon Starling. In a bold and considered move, he’s chosen to eschew…

Golden years - Tracey Emin

Edinburgh International Art Festival

As the leading female light of Britart, Tracey Emin has been revered and rejected in equal measure. Writer and broadcaster Bidisha has a few words of scorn for the detractors and reflects on the already profound legacy she will leave behind It’s been…

Scavengers - Joshua Sofaer interview

Edinburgh International Art Festival

Anneka Rice may have popularised scavenging but performance artist Joshua Sofaer is taking it to a new level. Claire Sawers asks him why he wants to trash Edinburgh Joshua Sofaer was wandering around a London art gallery recently, minding his own…

Turning point - Richard Wilson

Edinburgh International Art Festival

Installation artist Richard Wilson is a true pioneer whether he’s experimenting with drawing, film or sculpture. Rosie Lesso hears from the man about how he loves to defy preconceptions British artist Richard Wilson has an uncanny ability to distort…

Room with a view - Ingleby Gallery

Edinburgh International Art Festival

From much-missed nightclub space to the biggest commercial gallery outside of London, Kirstin Innes goes behind the scenes at the new Ingleby Gallery

Andrew Grassie

Edinburgh International Art Festival

There promises to be a lot of visitors doing a double-take in front of Andrew Grassie’s paintings at Edinburgh University’s Talbot Rice Gallery this summer. While a fleeting glance might suggest that the images are photographs, Grassie actually…

Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945

Edinburgh International Art Festival

Between the wars, the world changed. European cities were rebuilt taller and denser than before, with new technology giving rise to an industrial and creative hub. More than half a century on, this major touring show originating from Washington’s…

Best of the rest - Edinburgh Art Festival

Edinburgh International Art Festival

Richard Hamilton One of the key figures of British Pop Art brings us Protest Pictures, a selection of paintings, installations and collages examining his often damning portrayal of politics, movements and leaders. Inverleith House, Inverleith…

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

Edinburgh International Art Festival

Husband and wife duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are quite possibly the most vibrant artistic force to have emerged from Canada in recent years. Certainly, this show will be one of the least missable exhibitions of the Festival period, as…