FESTIVAL ART
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Jacqueline Donachie is back from the US and on home ground with a new show.
Her guests probably thought she was ’a neurotic Scottish girl or an alcoholic’, but what the hell, it broke the ice and the Long Island Ice Tea cocktails went down a treat. And this was New York, where you are more likely to seek a shrink than grab a drink at times of social anxiety.
Artist Jacqueline Donachie's debut on the New York art scene was unusual. She was new in town and finding it hard going socially. When asked to show a new work, Donachie invited her fellow students from New York's Hunter College to have a drink in a bar she'd constructed in her studio. Not only did the 'do' mark Donachie's arrival but it was also the first of her ‘bar' installations.
Back in Scotland after a year and a half in New York, Donachie is having her first show since her return. Stars + Bars alludes not just to the US flag but her twin interests in drinks bars and country and western singing stars. Preferring 'tough, horrible bars where the tables are nailed down,’ Donachie
: has long had a fascination with the
public drinking arena. On the
sparse, greenless, flat roof of her New York apartment, Donachie once put a sign saying 'Beer Garden'. For her New York show at the prestigious Jack Tilton Gallery, she put up a cardboard sign which said ’bar' above a
makeshift bar and bar stool.
’I am interested in the minimal bar, the minimal information needed to make an atmosphere,‘ says Donachie, who sees British bar culture as the equivalent of analyst culture in New York — you go to both when , you need to talk. For her Edinburgh exhibition, she'll be
ALAN DIMMICK
Back from across the Atlantic: Jacqueline Donachie on home territory
making a bar installation and showing photographs of her 3S32-mile car journey from New York to New Orleans. As an act of homage to her singing heroes, Donachie visited Elvis's home-now-shrine, Gracelands.
’I thought it would be quite tacky, a huge Elvis fest but
actually it was quite melancholic,’ says Donachie. ‘But it is the journey rather than the destination that's important, it’s about the unknown diners you stop off to have lunch in.’ (Susanna Beaumont)
I See Hit list, right for details.
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Mon Dior: Christian Dior supervises a fitting
A New Look At 1947
It could have been so very different. Had Christian Dior heeded his parents' advice he’d have signed up as a French diplomat. He'd doubtless have made a very dapper diplomat but the fashion world would have been minus a legend and a revolutionary.
It is 50 years since Dior launched his New Look in Paris. Against a backdrop of post-war austerity, he caused a sensation. He dropped hem lines to hover just above the ankle, used yards of fabric to Create billowing skirts and nipped in waists to waspish proportions. As one commentator of the time said: ’The new softness and roundness was posrtively voluptuous.’ It was also flagrantly decadent — the New Look smacked of excess in a time of enforced restraint.
Meanwhile, across the Channel, a young Harold Wilson appeared on Pathe News to urge the nation’s women to adopt ’a moderate skirt length’. The Minister of Food Sir Stafford Cripps, called the New Look an ’utterly stupid and irresponsible waste of time' Cripps, who seems to have been a bit of a kIHJOy, was also against the Edinburgh Festival, which also made its debut in 1947. He tried to get the second festival of 1948 cancelled. It was too indulgent
A New Look At 7947 celebrates both Dior’s New Look and the Edinburgh Festival. Indicating that post-war Europe was ready once again for pleasure, pomp and cultwe, there's festival memorabilia along With Dior outfits. Interestingly, Margot Fonteyn, who danced at the first festival wore a Dior suit in Edinburgh and it forms the exhibition's centre piece.
(Susanna Beaumont) I See Hit list, right, for details,
Hflflkfl Art that is guaranteed to satisfy your every part
Surrealism And After The big boys of Surrealism - Duchamp, Magritte, Dali and Max Ernst - are seen in all their glory with the first public showing of the Keiller Collection. Bequeathed to the gallery by the champion golfer and marmalade heiress Gabrielle Keiller in 1996, the collection also includes works by Paolozzi, Andy Warhol and Bruce McLean. Surrealism and After, National Gallery Of Modern Art (Venue 66) 556 8927, until 9 Nov, Mon-Sat 70am—5pm; Sun
7 7am-5pm.
Stars 4» Bars See preview, left. Stars And Bars, Collective Gallery 220 7260, until 30 Aug, Tue—Sat
7 7 am—5.30pm.
A New Look At 47 See preview, left. A New Look At 47, Talbot Rice Gallery, 650 227 7, unti/27 Sep, Tue—Sat 70am—5pm, Sun 2—5pm, £2 (E 7.50).
Raebum See review, over. Edinburgh’s celebrated son, famed for this portrait of the skating reverend, gets his first major retrospective for over 40 years. Raeburn, Royal Scottish Academy (Venue 64) 556 8927, until 5 Oct, Mon—Sat IOam—6pm; Sun
7 lameSPm. £4 (52-50); .
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Dalziel and Scullion The artist duo who have gone rural on Scotland's north-east coast, show a vast two- screen video installation. Melancholic but far from indulgent, it shows the undulating waters of the North Sea and a statue of an angel from a cemetry. Dalzie/ and Scullion, National Gallery Of Modern Art (Venue 66) 556 8927, until 74 Sep, Mon—Sat 70am—5pm,“ Sun
7 7am~5pm.
Captured Shadows Turn of the century Scots photographer, John Thomson, may be little known but he produced some of the finest early photography on his travels in the Far East. Captured Shadows, National Library of Scotland (Venue 7 75) 226 4537, until 28 Sep, Mon-Sat 70am-5pm; Sun 2—5pm.
8—14 Aug i997 rue usr 101