and >Bell. The team
Glasgow Art Fair
Glasgow: George Square Thu 29 Apr-Sat 2 May
E Once upon a time, celebrating May Day in George
! Square might have involved raising the red flag. These
| days however, the May weekend has become synony- mous with Art In The Square. This, the city's fourth Art Fair, is a four-day event for 46 UK-wide art galleries to do a bit of flag waving of their own, offering visitors not only the chance to view but also buy contemporary art. The British are believed to be reluctant purchasers of contemporary art compared to their European counter- parts. But with the rise of the Art Supermarket, Habitat's Art Club, perhaps the nation's shoppers will soon think nothing of the weekly shop involving the buying a couple of artists' multiples. Moreover Art In The Square is not just the reserve of the conventional hard-core commercial galleries. Scotland's Collective, Transmission, Ingleby and Portfolio galleries, along with the Modern Institute, all have their pitches.
And this year, tying in with Glasgow's reign as UK City of Architecture and Design, there's a pavilion given over to the Art Of Design, with the interior design, sig- nage and accompanying publicity produced by Happell
colours.
city.‘ (Moira Jeffrey)
No Noise Samples Glasgow: Gallery of lilodern Art until Sun 30 May
The idea of the [)QTSOl‘ai stereo \‘Jllll barely visible earpieces 'as neve' appealed to me i’lotli'ng cOLild replace the izioh fidelity joy of being plugged into a set of oversized headphones which give you the appearance of p'llfii‘S‘. Len: of Star Wars faint“
l'. seeins t".at you can l‘iéil'Illy enter a gallery space these days ‘.‘.'!(l"C.ll l;eing irtixitecl' ti) don uc'n headgear and turn on and 2'. me it At il‘f? Dundee Coz'iteir'igxxe‘iry Arts, fare s..: l: liste'iinc; DOSIS llfl‘JC’ been (_l’{’<'li'l"(l' St) ‘.’l’,~|i()l'3 can.
plug into specially rtiiiiniissioned
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An instrument by Chris Art has 'ikewisc her-i; 'ie i Biddlecomhe ternooi‘ar ly a sound-t .izi.-'.'ist,.al
Ron Arad's B.0.0.P. Low Table to be seen at Art In The Square
behind Glasgow bar Air Organic,
they bring sculptural thinking and technical rethink to the art fair marquee. Expect an interior of laminated surfaces and specially created furniture in bright
'It's going to be funky, it's going to look very dramatic, very big and bold,‘ says Dene Happell. Trained in both technical graphics and sculpture at Glasgow School Of Art, Happell has worked both as an artist and in film. Alistair Bell trained as a graphic designer, is a founding partner of design company, Locofoco, and is now work- ing on project partnerships as >Bell. Both were part of the group Flow whose club events were a synthesis of art, music and the spoken word.
As well as laminates, the tent interior will feature bold floral designs created with horticultural assistance from Glasgow's Parks Department. More sculptural innova- tion than Woman's Rural Institute, the design promises to put the green back into the recently denuded George Square. Moreover the Art In The Square’s cafe is to fea- ture the locally designed ’Chasm' chair'.
'I want to promote local designers and artists,’ stresses Happell. 'It is important to give something back to the
.nstailatit;n n a c_o'!ahorat.on DCIWC’GD
artist Chris Bicldlechmhe and mUSician
and composer Dcl'v'id Trouton Bidrllec‘oirtbe has created a series of
sculptures from found objects They l
are machines that cannot work, musical instruments that make no nOise A photograph, an image, a CD cover and the opportunity to listen to an indiVidually tailored soundtrack accompany each 'instrunient‘ Trouton has created the missing sounds, ranging from a loop of children playing to post-rock s0undscapes.
The show is, however, badly hung. GOlle is not domg any justice to its temporary exhibitions programme The visual art element is weak and fails to deliver a satisfactory idea, but the sounds are fun and stimulating and, for the nostalgic, the technology .s reasstiriitzjly chunky lit/loin] Jeffrey)
reviews ART
Focus
Edinburgh: Cameo until Sun 9 May a are:
Curated by artists Wendy lvchurdo and Duncan Ganley, Focus is a survey of work by third-year students drawn from Dundee‘s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art.
Derek Lodge's letters of customer dissatisfaction - written to Walkers Crisps and concerning a piece of fruit peel found in his Doritos dip -- and the corporate replies bring together meaningless customer service semantics With Lodge's own Watchdog- like jargon of complaint-veiling humour. Ross McVinnie's handmade scale models of container crates and the accompanying photographs hover between industrial chic and Airfix obse55ion, but manipulate colour and illiiSion in a calculated style.
Jane Sharkey's large Xerox print of 'Sadie’, a lady she met whilst working in the Gorbals, plays with and goes beyond notions of documentary photography and sOCial realism. Another stand-out piece is Leena Nammari's My Grandfather’s Land, based on a visit to Narnmari’s native Palestine where she roamed through generations of conflict and bureaucracy. Her layering of handwriting, photographs and images exploits the subject matter to the full. (Will Silk)
Citizen 2000
Edinburgh: Collective Gallery until Sat 15 May as we Since the exeCution in 1989 of PreSident CeauseSCLi, things have happened in Romania’s capital: for starters, Bucharest now boasts a McDonald's. Ian Hetherington's text work -- an interVIew Wlill a member of Ceausesco's firing squad -- is unnervrng and emblematic of this exhibition of fourteen Scotland-based art students.
Narrative, coupled ‘Nllh a thirst for social observation, prevails, and these emerging artists of today have clearly not been cocooned in cotton-wool, Hilary Knox’s Package shows two vigorously coc'kSLire men Wearing pink knickers branded 'Chaplin’s — Mallorca' over their trousers, these lads flaunt a male bravado that is at its bravest after a few pints of lager For the girls, Georgina Bolton-King's photographs of nights-out in Dundee, Arbroath and London catch a sense of female Wistlulness along With the ever-emotive kiss
lrony llkEWlSe stalks the show Michael Wilkinson and Torsten Lauschmann's High Rise Bird Boxes shows the detached bird box to be a suburban luxury. Here we are talking inner-city over-crowding. And a spiritual refuge in all this? Stuart Purdy's painting Three’s Company Tc ) is the scene of a Jesus jamboree: an empty marquee, placards announcing 'Crusade' and Jesus written across the drums. It's a scene of desolation, but who can tell if it is a spiritual never-never land. (Susanna Beaumont)
l STAR RATINGS l i a a” a 94‘ Unmissable s =2 is e Very good it s x Worth a shot . “r is Below average a You've been warned J
29 Apr—-l3 May T999 THE “ST 69
4.123233%.