ART & EXHIBITIONS LIST
f Thunde'rbirds, Captain Scarlet and
; Lady Penelope were sure-fire
i favourites of the sixties and the
a original puppets on display will no
‘ doubt bring out the fans of the
sixties.
I 0 COLLECTIVE GALLERY 52-54 High
. Street. Tue. Wed, Fri 12.30—5.30pm, Thurs 12.30-7pm. Sat 10.30am—5pm. Closed Sun and Mon. Alistair Nicol- Paintings Until Wed 12 Mar.
- Kirsty McGhie - Sculpture Fri 14—end Mar. 0 DEMARCO GALLERY 10 Jeffrey Street. 557 0707. Mon—Sat 10am—6 . 30pm. Painting - Photography Until Fri 21 Mar. Rita Donagh, Goto/Eachus. Ben Johnson. lan McKeever, John Stezaker. As the debate of photography as art goes on, artists continue to use this technical medium as source material for their paintings. The four artists in this exhibition have one thing in common — their reliance on photography in the making ofthe paintings on show. 0 EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY George Square. 667 1011. Mon—Fri 9am—5pm. Pick up a Penguin Until 30 June (exhibition room). An exhibition to launch the university’s growing collection of Penguin Books (1935—1960). It illustrates their development, their predecessors and
their imitators modestly but informatively.
William Drummond oi Hawthornden 1585—1549 Book Collector and Benetactor Until March (Drummond Room). Commemorating the 400th anniversary of his birth, this exhibition illustrates the growth of Drummond‘s collection and his relationship with the University and its library. During his lifetime, Drummond donated some 700 books to the library.
0 FINE ART SOCIETY 12 Great King Street, 556 0305. Mon—Fri 9.30am—5.30pm. Sat 10am-1pm. Scottish Paintings 1800-1920 General selection of work throughout March. 0 FORREST McKAY 38 Howe Street, 226 2589. Mon—Fri 10am—6pm, Sat 10am—1pm. This new gallery specialises in Scottish paintings from 1800 onwards, also selling furniture, porcelain, rugs and pottery from the same period.
0 FRENCH INSTITUTE 13 Randolph Crescent, 225 5366. Mon—Fri 10am—1pm. 2—5.30pm. Sat lOam—lpm.
Bernard Lassus Until Sat 29 Mar. A selection of retrospective works including ‘The Garden of the Anterior’ by Lassus. artist and Professor of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris since 1969. See also Graeme Murray Gallery.
O FRUITMARKET GALLERY 29 Market Street, 225 2383. Tue—Sat 10am-5.30pm. Closed Sun & Mon. Licensed cafe.
Reconstructions: Avant Garde Art in Japan 1945-65 Until Sat 5 Apr. EVENTS:
Short Introductory Tour oi the Exhibition Sats 8 and 22 Mar. 2pm. Free.
0 GALLERY OF MODERN ART Belford Road, 556 8921. Mon—Sat 10am—5pm. Sun 2—5pm. Rest. [D] The collection housed in this imposing Georgian building is the most comprehensive of its kind in Britain outside the Tate in London. All the main movements ofthe 20th century are represented. Braque, Picasso, Magritte, Lichtenstein and Hockney are among the many masters. The Scottish collection includes work by Cadell, Fergusson, Eardley, Gillies and Redpath.
O GRAEME MURRAY GALLERY 15 Scotland Street. 556 6020. Tue—Fri 1—6pm. Sat 10am—lpm.
Bernard Lassus Until Sat 29 Mar. A new conceptual work by this French artist/architect. See also French Institute.
0 HANOVER FINE ARTS 104 Hanover Street, 225 2450.
Landscapes and Flowers Mon 10 Mar—Tue 1 Apr. Oils and
l watercolours by Jane R. Brown, Lin
Brown (no relation), W. Chalmers
There are no exotic blooms, no romantic bridges, no calm paper spaces. This is not the familiar art at Japan - there is little point in searching lorthat traditional classical beauty in this exhibition olJapanese art (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh). Most oi the images have no intention oi being so. Beauty had no place in this country transiormed politically and emotionally by deieat and dismembered bytbe violence at war. In 1941, A Japanese army officer said
‘ in an art magazine interview, ‘Ii you do not iollow our guidelines, we will stop
. the rations oi paint and canvas.’ Under
a the severity at such a regime, artists
f were iorced eitherto reject their own
'2 principles or give up the brush
altogether. Regarding art as an
‘ideological weapon of war’, the
authorities ordered strict rationing at
3 material and a censorship which
L excluded all but pro-Imperial
; propaganda war art. Aiterthe arrest oi
; a leading pre-war surrealist artist,
i Fukuzawa, the avant-garde community
; crumbled away.
7 These lrustrations, together with the
E catastrophic losses oi the war itseli,
! led artists like Fukuzawa and Furusawa
; to paint nightmarish visions oi attack
and deieat. Painted in 1948, the
i earliest in this twenty year survey at the
. post-war Japanese avant-garde, their
images are bloody and intense.
Furusawa’s ‘Demonic Music'
immortalises the atom bombs oi
Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a she-devil
playing the pipes at destruction. Tiny
against the ilamlng body oi the gigantic
spirit, the broken town barely
resembles civilisation. There seem
L
34 The List 7 — 20 Mar “ " ‘
FROM DESTRUCTION TO RECONSTRUCTION
Furusawa himseli lost his home and hundreds oi paintings in a bomb attack. Fukuzawas gruesome mound oi mutilated bodies focuses more closely on the physical, human tragedy. Their struggle in the barren landscape oi a ‘Lost War’ seems lutile.
But a new wave at energy and the iormation oi a number oi artistic groups with an overtly political outlook enabled artists to examine the new limitations and borders at their war-torn country, invaded now by industrialisation.0kamoto, lecturing to students in 1948, articulated the new awakening. ‘We need to destroy everything with monstrous energy like Picasso’s in orderto reconstruct the Japanese Art World.’ In his raw, brash ‘Heavy Industry’ and ‘The Law at the Jungle’, people are reduced to the sparks at a machine or iodder tor a zipped-up crimson beast, halt-cat, halt-shark. The simple shapes and colours cannot hide the cruelty and
sense at anger in these two pictures.
Each artist of the 50s had his own unique method at interpretation, but certain themes run throughout the work. It is perhaps the leeling oi claustrophobia, ol crushing space that is most emotive. lshii’s dancers are trapped in their agonised jive by a cloud oi mechanical debris littered with Grosz-like heads and Kawara’s soldier is swallowed by the throat oi a deep well, head-iirst.
The 50s give way to the 60s in the upstairs gallery, where the work becomes more introspective, abstract or object, less easy to read as political documentary. The Neo-Dadaists put a ticking clock into a box (bomb or beating heart?), electric bells in a ringing pattern on the floor and a stulied lalcon diving into a bed. Though several at these images can still shock, particularly ‘L’Amour’, the two ireak heads in a pathetic embrace, these works seem to act as an epilogue to the previous decade. (Alice Bain).
KlKi :‘it vast/tsi rim; 'r‘o'ri-Ms
Brown, Bernie O'Donnell and Syd Walker. Paintings. prints and jewellery from stock also on display. 0 HM GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE Princes Street. 556 6585. Mon—Fri 10am—4pm.
Watch This Space Until 25 April. An exhibition of historic advertising, interesting not so much for the designs, but for the wealth of sociological detail it contains.
0 MALCOLM INNES GALLERY 67 George Street. 226 4151. Mon—Fri 9.30am—6pm. Sat 10am—lpm. General Exhibition Until further notice.
0 MERCURY GALLERY 2/3 North Bank Street, 225 3200. Mon—Fri 10am—5.30pm, Sat 10am-1.00pm. Mascaras de Mexico- Indian Dance Masks irom Guerrero Until Sat 8 March. Large noses. curly noses and devils by the dozen. this exhibition of fiesta day dance masks from Mexico is colourful, fun and ever so slightly scary.
Victoria Crowe Thurs l3 Mar—Sat 12 Apr. New paintings by this Edinburgh-based artist.
0 NATIONAL GALLERY OF SCOTLAND The Mound, 556 8921. Mon—Sat lOam—Spm, Sun 2—5pm. Figure Drawings Until end March. 300 years of figure drawings.
0 NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND George lV Bridge. 226 4531 . Mon—Fri 9.30am—5pm, Sat 9.30am—1pm.
Filly Years On—The Saltire Society 1936-1986 Throughout March. An exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the society in the fields ofScottish education. architecture, music and the environment.
Karl-Erik Forsberg Sat 15 Mar—Wed 21 May. The first major exhibition outside the Scandinavian countries of work by this international calligrapher and typographer. Forsberg has designed bookplates and monograms for the Swedish Royal Family. The exhibition will include designs for bookjackets and watercolour paintings of illuminated alphabets.
O NETHERBOW 43 High Street 556 9579.
With work completed on the new glass foyer. the Netherbow reopens its gallery with two exhibitions this month.
Isolation and Interaction Until Sat 29 Mar. Modelled figures and drawings by Aliisa Hyslop. In her first solo exhibition, Aliisa Hyslop shows work in a variety of media centring on a sculptural composition which groups together thirty figures. Embroidered Pictures Until Sat 29 Mar. Aliisa’s sister, Katherine Hyslop, shows a selection of her embroidered work in the gallery café.
0 OPEN EYE GALLERY 57 Cumberland Street, 557 1020. Mon—Fri 10am—6pm. Sat 10am-4pm. [D] Marian Achburn — Paintings Until Thurs 27 Mar.
Andy Lang — Ceramics Until Thurs 27 Mar.
0 PORTRAIT GALLERY Queen Street. 5568921. Mon-Sat 10am—5pm. Sun 2-5pm.
The Riddell Collection Until end Mar. Eighty ofthe 10,000-strong