FESTIVAL VISUAL ART | Previews & Reviews
REVIEW COUNTERPOINT Mixed-media works from eight contemporary artists ●●●●●
Waiting plays a big part in the Talbot Rice's compendium of eight relatively off-piste artists for their EAF show. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ellie Harrison's ‘After The Revolution, Who Will Clean Up The Mess?’, an installation of four confetti cannons which may or may not be detonated on 18 September this year at a post-referendum party, depending on which way the vote goes. This is something Ross Birrell's uncertainty-based works also point to in their references to Heisenberg and Mallarmé's poem ‘A Throw of the Dice’.
If Harrison's piece isn't enough motivation for the
accompanying all-night party to go with a bang, one might turn to Michelle Hannah's ongoing fantasy / wish-fulfilment fascination with retro-futuristic electronic torch ballads and the vogue for ice-cool dystopian iconography that defined the accompanying rise of the pop video. In ‘Statue’, she looks to Talbot Rice's own surroundings to give her work the image of classicist gravitas.
Shona Macnaughton's quest for narrative looks to Jean
Genet's play The Maids for a self-reflexive video performance flanked by boardroom tables that hint at brainstorms past. Craig Mulholland's bowling alley-styled ‘Potemkin Funktion’ is similarly unpopulated, with the accompanying vocal samples giving off the air of an end-of-the-world amusement arcade. Alec Finlay's wicker beehive constructions and the accompanying recording of him reading his ‘Global Oracle’ are a more rural retreat than Keith Farquhar's aluminium and corrugated iron constructions below.
If Andrew Miller's photographs look even more barren, his
wooden construction ‘Refraction’ looks imported from an adventure playground, and is as good a place as any to view performances by Jeans & MacDonald, Alex Hare and Orthodontia. Whatever happens next, fireworks are inevitable. (Neil Cooper)
■ Talbot Rice Gallery, 650 2210, until 18 Oct, free.
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PREVIEW ALESSANDRO MASSIMO: I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR Exploring borders, boundaries and citizenship
Alessandro Massimo’s interest in geographical borders started when he was researching the Biala river in Poland. ‘Observing how the history and geographical configuration of some regions of Poland have changed around this river began my interest in how we construct boundaries,’ says Massimo ‘or how we use natural borders to define spaces . . . and how those spaces represent what we want reality to be.’
The Edinburgh-based artist’s first solo show in the city will present works centred on the theme of borders, boundaries, citizenship and European identity. Works will include video installations, handmade maps and a series of paintings analysing common symbols of power.
Massimo’s exhibition will also present the first edition of the publication The Manifesto of Western Happiness, an illustrated survey inspired by an ongoing participatory project which investigates the theme of happiness. ‘[Edition one] is an interactive word cloud which shows a series of terms collected from 139 people from 25 different countries about their idea of happiness,’ describes Massimo. (Rachael Cloughton) ■ Interviewroom 11, 20 Aug–6 Sep, free.
92 THE LIST FESTIVAL 14–25 Aug 2014
REVIEW GENESIS & LADY JAYE BREYER P-ORRIDGE: LIFE AS A CHEAP SUITCASE (PANDROGENY & A SEARCH FOR UNIFIED IDENTITY) Intimate quest for a unified identity ●●●●●
From 1960s arts collective COUM Transmissions to the industrial band Throbbing Gristle and beyond, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge was the ultimate self-created deity. So when he and partner Lady Jaye embarked on their Pandrogeny project in a bid to look identical to each other, it was the ultimate love story. This first UK show since 2003 is part document of the ongoing series of body modifications the pair underwent, part homage to Lady Jaye, whose 'body dropped' in 2007. The scars are still there in this in-the-raw
assortment of imagery that charts their quest for two to become one, both in large-scale lightbox images and in elaborately framed photographs of them post-op. Elsewhere, coyote-head installations, religious iconography and royal family-subverting collages expose lives in permanent opposition. After such extreme measures, however, it's a small black-and-white image of the pair that's most evocative – already resembling twins, their faces are captured side by side, as if looking off into some imaginary sunset, together forever. (Neil Cooper) ■ Summerhall, 560 1590, until 26 Sep, free.
REVIEW VILLA DESIGN GROUP: THE HOUSE OF ADELAIDA IVANOVNA Postmodern theatre in shopping centre ●●●●●
The vast top-floor warehouse space of Ocean Terminal's Logan's Run-style shopping mall is a gloriously incongruous venue for the Hamburg / London-based Villa Design Group's epic reimagining of Gogol's play, The Gamblers. This dissection of architecture and morality sees Laura Schuller's Adelaida hold court to a crooked conference of interior designers brought together to discuss the building of a new library to house Gogol's archive. As she bursts through a wooden construction that is part state-of-art coffin, part dressing-up box, her connivances are partly hidden from view, requiring the audience to follow the action around the set as a movie camera might pan its way to its conclusion.
Visually led post-modern European theatre of this scale is nothing new in Edinburgh in August. Seen in a visual art context with a big-windowed view of Edinburgh's own architectural reinventions, however, it becomes a chicly audacious statement on form, function and how a space's narrative can be shaped. (Neil Cooper) ■ Ocean Terminal, exhibition until 31 Aug, performances Thu–Sat, 7pm, free, contact mme. ivanovna@gmail.com for tickets.