PAINTING & PHOTOGRAPHY
Merete Barker — The City As Image. Red City. Black Qty *‘k‘k
Landscapes of discovery
The Danish Cultural Institute’s Festival exhibition showcases the work of prominent Danish artist Merete Barker. The City As Image elicits the theme of the City and turns it into an allegory of nature and architecture in harmony.
In a somewhat restrictive space, you encounter a panorama of photographs which chronicle Barker's IOUTI‘IeyS through the historical landscapes of China and Mexico. These photographs are a map to Barker's imagination, where we can see the synthesis of architecture and nature take place. With these imaginary and real landscapes, Barker creates her colour saturated canvases.
Red City. Black City is inspired by a trip to India. Through the gloom of colour shapes and forms evolve, manipulated into being by brushstroke, sponge and hand. The canvases evoke the architecture of anCient mystical cities, where man, nature and culture were once compatible. (Isabella Weir) I Merete Barker — The City As Image. Red City Black City, Danish Cultural Institute (Venue 763) 225 7 789, until 75 Sep, Mon—Fri 70am—5pm. Free
DESIGN <dis>location of the chair *** Classic chair designs Ever thought of the chair as a fetish icon? Perhaps not but this show is all about gorgeous, good looking chairs. On the walls hang close-up photographs of chair legs, chair seats and chair backs. They definitely show the chair as not Just a functional piece of furniture but as sensual object, And, of course, there are chairs for real, scattered stylishly around the gallery space. What's more, you half expect to see Christine Keeler who was famously photographed astride a highly- curveous chair to be draped over one of them.
There’s Harry Bertoia's diamond chair dating from 1951 made of welded
VIDEO Alan Currall - Encyclopaedia And Other Works ****
Personal musings delivered to camera Alan Currall's first solo exhibition,
Encyclopaedia And Other Works, is comprised of Currall’s more well- known deadpan video self portraits, alongside a new CD-ROM work Encyclopaedia. In Currall's video works, such as Lying To Make Myself Appear More Interesting and Message To My Best Friend, the artist presents you with monologues which are so monotonous they test your patience, but which also become strangely engaging one-to-one exchanges of sorts.
Encyclopaedia, a CD-ROM in which Currall's friends and family
give authoritative explanations of subjects ranging from life and death through to magpies, becomes a reference work which is full of the ordinary wisdom accumulated through our very own experiences and language. Currall's art, some kind of deviant version of real life, questions knowledge, language and self-awareness in a
steel Wire, and from master designer Arne Jacobson, there's the famed series 7 chairs upholstered in rusty Orange coloured leather. But the most beautiful? Verner Panton’s 1953 lounge chair in tubular steel and black leather is sensuality on legs. Thankfully the exhibition inVites you to touch the chairs. Now that’s chair heaven! (Susanna Beaumont)
I <dis>location of the chair, Matthew Architecture Gallery 650 2342, until 3 Sep, Mon—Fri 70am—4pm. Free.
ARCHITECTURE Building Scotland: Building Debate **** ls modernism the way forward? The question is clear. Is Scotland more concerned With peddling its architectural past rather than embracmg a resolutely contemporary bUilding style? And it's a question that l
Lounge Chair by Verner Panton 1953
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has long been asked. In 1943 Building Scotland was published by architects Alan Reiach and Robert Hurd who argued the case for a modern approach to building design.
And the debate goes on. This show kicks off With an audio-visual of 20th century buildings from around the world accompanied by a sunably modernist John Cage soundtrack. Next comes the opinions of six contemporary architects on various modern day and worldWide CIVIC and reSidential buildings. Could these buildings be models for Scotland? With a host of architectural models and draWings, this show, which lies JUSI a stone's throw from the site of the new Scottish Parliament, certainly adds heat to an on-gOing debate. (Susanna Beaumont)
I Bur/ding Scot/and: Building Debate, Royal Fine Art Commission For Scot/and (Venue I32) 556 6699, until 2 Sep, daily 77am—4pm. Free.
PAINTING & SCULPTJRE East Through West ***
Full of Eastern promise
A private reSidence in Stockbridge is the setting for new work by artists Nan Mulder and Hamish Horsley.
Inspired by travels to India and Central America, Dutch-born artist Nan Mulder's paintings evoke the ambience and landscape of these exotic locations. From a palette of spicy, rich, ruby red, scarlet and yellow hues, the flora and fauna, architecture, sun- drenched verandas and religious offerings make up Mulder’s ocular documentation. The Vibrant The Red Temple is striking and Mulder’s works on paper, similar to Indian miniatures, are a fusion of gold and Sanskrit texts.
New Zealand-born artist Hamish Horsley is perhaps better known for his
way which is both boringly interesting, and deceptively simple. (Claire Mitchell)
I Alan C urra/I — Encyclopaedia And Other Works, Stills Gallery 622 6200, until 23 Sep, Tue—Sat 70am—8pm; Sun & Mon noon—8pm (extended opening hours until 27 Aug
public artworks, the most recent being the Tibetan Peace Garden at the Imperial War Museum. Gouache and pencil drawings accompany his abstract SCUlpture. From red sandstone, moonstone and ancaster, Horsley crafts a series of natural forms, stemming from his memories of travelling in Tibet. A slice of the East for our western eyes.
‘(Helen Monaghan)
I East Through West, 24 Royal Circus, 226 2769, until 2 Sep, Mon—Sat
I lam—6pm. Free.
PAINTING
Mass ***
Exploring the human form
Fred Crayk’s latest series conSists of near-abstract figures set against lurid day-glo pinks and oranges or stark white in contrast to his earlier landscapes and still lifes.
The murky, gooey forms are more like suggestions than portraits, With bold, mucky outlines forming warped shapes — a bent back here, a cross-legged figure there — that never qwte manage to settle into a familiar, recognisable pose, The paintings, too, are intensely textural, With swathes of tacky wallpaper patterning highlighting the haphazard flesh, blood and secretion tones that mark out the figures.
In fact, more than anything, Crayk’s paintings look like the decaying, diseased cousms of Keith Haring’s Jolly Sprites. (Jack Ivlottram)
I Mass, Bel/evue Gallery, 557 7663, until 2 Sep, Tue—Sat noon—6pm. Free.
fist/{R RATING—S“m ' m _
* t t at t Unmissable
* t i it Very good
* t * Worth seeing
it * Below average
it You’ve been warned“
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17—24 Aug 2000 THE lIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 63