MIXED MEDIA IIAMAWASHI Merz Gallery, Sun 7 Aug-Sun 4 Sep
‘Iiamwashi is one of those Japanese words that's hard to translate.‘ explains Merz director Calum Buchanan. ‘But it basically means
“ways of communicating". It can mean
many ways of communicating, which we believe this exhibition is very much about.‘
Although it‘s a thematically diSparate event. Buchanan and co-CLirator Aeneas Wilder have sourced the 14 exhibitors from among Japan's artistic community. offering what they believe to be an overview of the sort of art the c0untry is producing at the moment. ‘lt's a diverse selection.‘ says Buchanan. 'From Video work to painting. printmaking and soulpture. We were interested in the way that Japan takes something that's global and puts its own slant on it.‘
Among the artists Buchanan WI” be welcoming is Botan. a painter who makes ‘beautiful Surrealist paintings in a Japanese tradition'. a contemporary printmaker named Hisashi Momose. and Glasgow-educated Kumi Yamashita. who creates crayon rubbing portraits from the sitter's credit card numbers.
Perhaps most excmng of all is Ken Kageyama. whose sculptural chopstick arrangement will be an off- site work at the nearby Lyon and Turnbull auction house. ‘In the past he's bOund bunches of six chopsticks together to make pyramids — representing the three meals of the day — or he's planted them in the soil to create an environmental work.‘ says Buchanan. 'lt's based on a Japanese concept called Ma. which is a serene space. a place of contemplation. and even he won't know what the work will resemble until he's considered the space where it Wlll appear.‘ (David Pollock)
EDINBURGH ANNUAL E AURORA 8. EMERGED
Aurora, Cell 77, Sat 6 & Sun 7 Aug; EmergeD, St James Shopping Centre,
Sat 6—Sun 28 Aug
While the still fledgling Edinburgh Art Festival may tie the programmes of more established gallery spaces together. it's the more locally-concerned Edinburgh Annuale that allows younger artists to perform guerilla actions in less obvious art venues. as exemplified by these shows from two of the city‘s ever-growing range
of independent collectives.
As such. what Aurora's Ruth Beale calls her two-day ‘Artfest' at Cell 77 features her own work and that of fellow collectives Enso and Found (the latter also performing music under the same name). while Glasgow Drawmg Club inVite the public to make art a communal experience by letting people sit and draw in company. EmergeD. on the other hand. will be exhibiting throughout August in empty storefronts at the St James Centre. with local artists Eilidh McNair and Niall MacDonald jomed by postal submissions from Melbournites Kiron Robinson
and Lou Hubbard.
‘The grassroots theme is the most exCIting thing that's happening in visual arts in Edmburgh.’ says EmergeD's Kirsten Lloyd. 'That's what the Annuale's about. showmg what's happening within the city in an international context. You know. five years ago artists w0u|d JUSl leave Edinburgh for Glasgow, but now they're staying and creating work which responds to the scene here. The Annuale is the most concrete example of that. for the widest possible audience.’
(DaVid Pollock)
MULTl-MEDIA LIFE BENEATH THE SHADOW Fruitmarket Gallery, until 25 September .000
I know we’re spoiled for fireworks in Edinburgh, but Cai Guo-Qiang’s ‘Black Rainbow’ explosion above the castle was somewhat underwhelming. From where I was standing in Princes Street Gardens - along with a good many other bemused punters on the first day of the Edinburgh Art Festival — the Chinese artist’s ‘large— scale pyrotechnic event’ looked like nothing more than two puffs of black cotton wool rising noisily above the city.
Apparently, if you stood in just the right place, you could make out the shape of a rainbow in his sooty clouds. Perhaps you might also have recognised it as an ominous symbol of our troubled times, though I suspect that’s expecting too much of an arc of black smoke.
Happily, things are more rewarding at ground level where the artist has put together an entertaining exhibition - teasing and spooky — that draws on China’s
Visual Art
View from Princes Street: Cai Guo—Qiang, Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh, 2005
cultural interest in gunpowder and ghosts.
Walk into the Fruitmarket’s ground—floor space and you could be mistaken for thinking you’ve made a wrong turn into Dobbie's Garden Centre. Under a lunar blue light, a small forest of six-foot plantain palms fills the room.
According to Chinese folklore, these plants are adept at conjuring female ghosts. To help them in their haunting task, Gueriang has inscribed the leaves with fragments of spooky stories written by Scotland’s James Robertson. ‘We all felt strange, uneasy, as if we were being watched,’ says one and, to prove the point, you can watch night-time CCTV footage of the room in the adjacent gallery.
llpstairs is brighter and yet more haunting, as 6110- Qiang’s celebrated gunpowder portraits hang like Turin shrouds under a Spider’s web of tumbling paper figures. The explosive energy of the images is equalled by the violence of ghostly white silhouettes pinned to the wall. In all senses, it’s a spirited display.
(Mark Fisher)
:1 t 1 Aug 930?) THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 71