Homes for the Future Glasgow: Glasgow Green, I Jul—24 Oct A A major factor in Glasgow's success in the bid to become City of Architecture was the city's apparent , -\ willingness to involve fundamental design issues such as the roof over your head. The proof of the pudding will be in Homes For The Future, the housing expo at the edge of Glasgow Green.
While debate continues on the possible transfer of the city's public housing stock, the 1999 project aims to provide a model for urban renewal with a mix of public and private housing in this flagship development. With 88 private homes for subsequent sale and twelve for rent after the initial exhibition stage, the site will continue a development programme until about 2005.
Visitors will have the chance to see a selection of homes by architects such as the Tokyo-based l Ushida Findlay Partnership and RMJM Scotland - the executive architects for the Scottish Parliament. There will also be pavilions providing information about the project, architects and developers involved. Designers such as Habitat’s Tom Dixon and One Foot Taller have been invited to fit out showhome interiors; viewers of BBC’s Homefront series will have had a sneak preview of Ann McKevitt's contribution - trademark curves and glass bricks.
Running alongside on the Expo site will be Home, an exhibition curated by 1999 Director Deyan Sudjic and Austrian design historian Tulga Beyerle. 'The architecture is like the shelter we live in,’ explains Beyerle. 'but it is nothing without the individual moving in and turning it into a home.’ This means looking at not
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figures such as Tadao Ando - but the contents of everyday homes. Electricity in the home has been the most dramatic development and the exhibition includes domestic technology such as microwaves and televisions. The rise of the dream kitchen and the demise of the housewife will be amongst the social issues covered.
In an age where decorating has become a national obsession, it is important to recognise the emotional contents of the home ideal and the role of advertising. 'Home reflects people's dreams and aspirations,’ says Beyerle. In Glasgow, where for some such dreams and aspirations are unfulfilled, let‘s hope Homes For The Future helps us face a few home truths. (Moira Jeffrey)
Northumberland. The pictures are solidly composed yet continually 'suggestive and fIUid The landscape is not stilled. Changes brought by light and Wind are marked and seen In one, the sun's rays are caught like a protecting veil, in others, fallen trees are seen through the upright forest against a bright horizon and the grass rushes towards us like a torrential river It would be easy and tempting to call the black and white images elegiac, but they are too rich, too full, too utterly alive Refreshingly, they are devoid of the Cynicisin found in the empty aesthetic of much contemporary photography
The images and texts by the other photographers reflect Johnston's selfless interest in photography The breadth and range is testament to this,
Murray Johnston: Landscapes
. Edinburgh: National Portrait Gallery,
until Sun 5 Sep
The purpose ot this sensitively curated Exhibition is to pay tribute to the very
3 personal VISION of Murray Johnston, ; the late photographer and influential
teacher That vision, ril‘iil the laiirlsiape referred to in the title, is twofold The exhibition clettly balances examples of
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Untitled. America (1981-82
and lll‘laQCt from nine other male Scottish photographers These work as .i tribute to the support Johnston fcistti-i in the Scottish pnututirapfiy during the 803, firstly while Director of Stills Gallery and then as Head of Shuttiijiaph‘,’ at the Edinburgh Collette i it Art
Jcihnstoi‘i's t\\.'.ll ,rk, printin up by photographer C‘.'~.’t'll Logan, consists of the stronrj geometry he found whilst I pail. "t
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from Murdo MacLeod’s simple docUinentary to Calum CoIVin fictional worlds, reminiscent of gaudin airbrushed Harley Davrdson petrol tanks Donald Milne writes, under his fashion-based portrait, of Johnston's enthusiasm, 'not just for photography but for life itself, and anything that can be worth celebrating in life — be it art, music, a joke or a great pair of trousers’
Throughocit this affecting exhibition, in his own images and in the words of others, the presence of Murray is continually and keenly felt.
(Johnny Gailey)
ART
The Shed
Glasgow: Collins Gallery until Thu 15 Jul at it *
Presenting lens-based media from Sixteen artists connected to the Edinburgh College of Art's School of Visual Communication, this show whisks us through various concepts of 'the shed' from 'ubiquitous garden store to industrial burlding'. Richard Boll's 'The Hutters Of Carbeth' series is a beautiful mix of personal, political and socral studies, which look at the dignity given to the Hutters by their huts, the shed as saViour and symbol.
Brent Macgregor's 'National Museum Of Shed' escapes the dense hanging by creating its own space, with tiny exhibits VlSlble through peepholes, including his Cristos Emans' 'Shed with the names of all the tents I've ever slept in'. Calum Ross, Andy Moxon, Chris Byrne and all deserve a mention for quality, but the dominant feeling is of the work closmg in on you. Maybe that is an intentional irony, a comment on the gallery as 'art shed’ — but maybe not (Will Silk)
SuperNATURAI.
Edinburgh: Stills Gallery until Sat 3l Jul wit-1i x1
Supernatural, supersexy, supermodel, and — to quote Rick James (because peOple don't enough these days) - it’s superfreaky. Yes, it's Oxymoron time at Stills With the hyperphotorealism of Wendy McMurdo and Machiko Edmondson.
McMurdo takes photographs that aren’t photographs of children who aren’t children. Normal at first glance, they reveal their half-existence as the pictures are read. The loaded atmosphere of 'Girls With Bears' and ‘Martin With Owl’ (made recently at the Royal Museum of Scotland) tap into the weirdness of these animals: birds frozen in flight or bears in the woods that won‘t ever perform their proverbials.
Machiko Edmondson makes paintings that aren‘t paintings. Her gigantic canvases of models’ faces, derived from closely cropped facral shots, don't show every blemish but reveal every tOiich-up of the fashion photo. These generic beauties are transformed by scale (and just the right scale) into intrusive stares Compare these With 'Virtually Everything', which is based On one of her own photographs, and the difference is subtle but clear. Whatever else is gomg on this month, it is hard to see how this show can be superseded. (Will Silk)
Embrace 1998
24 Jun—8 Jul l999 TIIE “ST 85