Detlef Henrichs Edinburgh: Portfolio Gallery until Sat 19 Dec r,;_.~ w ,. Sometimes cosrrzeth surgery :s a necessny For sure, the surgeon's knife isn't the exriusne preserve of those ageing l'iarridar‘s who wear their belly- buttons for performance artists ‘ shed skins as if they were last year's wardrobe. For the multitude of Si‘flffli‘. burns Victims, it's as real as they'li ge it an attempt to re-build themselves as 'norrnal' After a of skin graft operations, Czerrrran photographer Detlef Henrirlrs dezrded enough was enough and, as the dramatic Self Portrait here tr-atit'iw, opted to stand proud aar'u'riz; the casual
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(rchrtt-r two :0 and Britain) Hovering arriurgurrust‘,’ around the diVis:ori l.‘.r"l‘:l(f‘r separates autonomous art objetts from We demand of utilitarianisrri (several l;f‘.‘((“, flirt ‘.‘/ltfl a shelf-like exrstenri"), his stulptures trade in the purist (lirHH’I, ploughing
Narben by Detlef Henrichs
is humbled by the dignified and defiant faces staring back at you.
These photographs defy any conventional notions of vrctim culture. A mother and daughter, a young boy and Niki Lauda (the famous racmg car driver) - all offer themselves up, their scarred skin naked, daring you to find fault wrth their exposed and damaged flesh. No dewy-eyed pity is reguned here. Nothing is hidden, no flaws are airbrushed out; the rich lucidrty of these photographs is on a par with any image-peddling glossy magazrne.
Entitled Narben (the German word for scarring) this exhibition is a brave piece of work on any level. There is a clear and obvious empathy between artist and SUUJGCI, and this duality sets the exhibition apart from what could, in less sensitive hands, have ended up as a mundane, f titillatory freak show. (Neil Cooper)
the less-is-more furrow Everything is white, black or muted tasteful colours, everything is physically reasonable -- or highly saleable, depending on your art- world politics
The minimalist aesthetic -whrch deliberately sucked out formal variation or 'drstractron' in an attempt to shift the Viewers' interest to the relationship between the work and its context (the gallery space‘» was once a highly radical gesture Now, however, its power to shock has waned it has become fully incorporated into the machinery of the culture industry In this respect, Suzuki's show is illuminating. Anyone harbouring delusions of radical grandeur need look no further to be reminded that tooay’s heresres are t0rriorrow's commonplaces (John Beagles)
reviews ART
Six-Ply
Edinburgh: College of Art until Tue 24 Nov * e 1%
Give a classroom full of kids a cereal packet and a loo roll from the iunk box, and they'll provide diverse takes on life. Similarly, working with a loose theme based around wood, the six artists exhibiting in Six-Ply take in the wilds, the obscure and the trivia of everyday life
The construction aspect features prominently, from Allan Holligan's depiction of 'men at work' in The Distance Between Us, to Stuart Bennett's installation Working Man’s Bar, a quirky gag which on closer inspection creates the illusion of a draughtsman’s set. Ewan Robertson uses his raw material to create simplistic constructions in The Village and Exit, while Robbie Chapman reminds us of woods essential Significance in nature. Again we see the conflict between man and nature in Colette Woods miniature landscape, before Ursula Cleary takes us back to the familiar scene of Edinburgh's High Street.
The installations are among highlights of the exhibition, but overall it lacks substance and cohesion. An apparently rough cobbling together can create a splintered effect. (Claire Prentice)
Alienated St Petersburg
Edinburgh: City Art Centre until Mon Abnwiea
Up until 1961, it was a criminal offence to be homeless in the Soviet Union. Bureaucracy surrounded those who had nothing: it was a case of holding the right papers to claim the 'right' status. Earlier there were institutions: the Imperial Philanthropic Society, for instance, which dressed its charges in uniforms and demanded compliance to the system.
Organised iorntly by The Big Issue In Scot/and and its equivalent in St Petersburg, The Depths, A/ienated St Petersburg looks at homelessness over the decades and under different regimes. Archive photographs map out the changes in the way the homeless have been treated over the years up to the situation today. As is the case in Britain, the homeless are seen as being on the margins of society and, for the most part, on the margins of the nation’s consciousness. A telling exhibition. (Susanna Beaumont)
Members of St. Petersburg's The Depths
Artscapes Edinburgh: City Art Centre until Mon 4 Jan at» e a
Ian Hamilton Finlay's 0h! Nature
City slicker, beach burn or country bumpkin . . everyone has their own idea of the heavenly habitat. Exploring our place in the envrronment, Artscapes whips round the whole sphere of land, sea and city scapes.
The city, seen from both aerial and street perspective, is at once exciting and intimidating. Interesting links arise through iuxtaposing historical works, including street plans, wrth contemporary portraits of everyday life. Capturing the idiOSyncrasres of the city in The Red Park, Henry Kondracki humorously conveys the contrasting past and present of Edinburgh’s Meadows as graveyard and recreational park.
Further contrasts encourage consideration of small and large-scale human intervention on the landscape, from Robert Noble’s depiction of agricultural lowland Scotland to Martyn Greenhalgh’s modern man-made garden, taken from the Little Sparta series. Meanwhile, in his monochrome image of a rocky Orkney landscape, Thomas Joshua Cooper captures the hostility and exhilaration of the terrain
Conveying the endlessly confused relationship between man and nature, the indiwdual in Robert Maclaurin's In Eastern Territory is dwarfed by the surrounding mountain range, while Joseph Davres presents a huge warrior—like presence striding through the Wilderness of a post-plague landscape Elsewhere Davrd Mach offers up a contrast to traditional depictions of expansive toastli'ies in his quirky Br‘iywatch-style mixed media collage, portraying surfer duties and bikini babes
Shame that Robert Smithson's vrdeo Spiral Jetty, wasn't on during this vrewer's vrsit, which would have given another take on the landscape made human, (Claire Prentice)
19 Nov :3 [)CC l998 THELIST 89