festival
ART PREVIEW
Agnes Martin andJohn McLaughlin
’You have to think the work is paramount in your life. An artist’s life is adventurous.’ This is painter Agnes Martin writing in 1989. For Martin, work is so paramount that, at the age of 87, she still spends every day in the studio.
This summer, lnverleith House will show fourteen recent canvases by Martin, together with paintings and prints by the late John McLaughlin. Both fall into the category, ’the artist's artist’ — abstract painters whose dedication and singular vision have earned them enormous respect. In recent years, this recognition has become very public for Martin, with the award of the US National Medal of Arts.
’Agnes Martin is a living American legend and I’ve wanted to show her work for a very long time,’ says lnverleith House curator, Paul Nesbitt. ’Some prints and drawings were shown here exactly 25 years ago, but the point about Agnes Martin is her paintings don’t reproduce at all well and I really wanted Scotland to be
— ART REVIEW
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Joseph Beuys: Editions
Untitled, 1952 by John McLaughlin
able to experience them at first hand.’
For Martin, the spiritual contemplation of nature from her home in New Mexico fired her quest to represent beauty through use of geometric grids and lines. McLaughlin’s adventure, on the other hand, was a lifetime's investigation of Asian art and culture, including a period spent in Japan. Born at the close of the 19th century, he was an art expert and antiquarian whose scholarly paintings fused the discoveries of Malevich and Mondrian with the much older systems and bodies of knowledge that he found in the East. ‘He is also a legend,’ says Nesbitt of the artist who died in 1976, ’but relatively unknown outside artistic circles in New York and Los Angeles.’
There’s a real sense of anticipation in the city about the chance to see this work in Scotland, particularly in the context of the Royal Botanic Garden. ’Both artists have been inspired in their very different ways by an intense concentration on the natural world,’ says Nesbitt, ‘so lnverleith House is the ideal setting.’ (Moira Jeffrey)
{I Agnes Martin and John McLaughlin, lnverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, 248 2943, 74 Aug- 437 Oc t, 77am—5pm, free.
conventions of the time. This exhibition of photographs, ObJC‘CiS and drawmgs is drawn from the Berlin collection of
Felt Suit by Joseph Beuys
4TllE lIST Edinburgh Gallery Guide 1999
A pair of Jeans lie in a glass cabinet with two Circular holes cut into the knees. Joseph Beuys called them ’the trousers of the 21stcentury' and advocated that everyone should follow his example and make similar holes in their trousers in a 'struggle against world-Wide materialism and repression
An artist and political actrvrst, Beuys was a founder member of the Green Party, who believed that people should explore their creative abilities — be it welding sossors 0r taking part in 'actions'. This would lead everyone to tune in more accutely to their spiritual side.
Today it might all sound wearily like new-ageist radicalism but Beuys, who died in 1986, teased cleverly at those
Reinhard Schlegel and charts the artist’s life. There’s a picture of a smiling Beuys called Democracy ls Merry, which was taken after the occupation of Dtisseldorf's Art Academy. Further on you read of his twelve-hour lecture ’A Homage To Anarcharsis Cloots' given in Edinburgh. Humour ripples through the show. One sign advertises Beuys as a cosmetic surgeon speCIalising in ’buttocklifting’, The shame is, however, that Beuys’s passion and herOism are ineVitably chilled in a formal gallery setting. Beuys is reduced to fascmating memorabilia. (Susanna Beaumont) I Joseph Beuys: EdlilOflS, National Gallery of Modern Art (Venue 66) 624 6200, until 72 Sep, Mon~5at 70am—5pm, Sun 77am—5pm, [2.50
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Joseph Beuys The revolutionary art maker who always cut a sartorial dash — he was never seen WithOuI his pork-pie hat is today considered an art world hero Here Beuys is celebrated in a show of cirawmgs, photographs and works Joseph Beuys, National Gallery Of Modern Art rVenue 66) 624 6200, until 79 Sep, Mon Sat 70am 5pm, Sun 11am 5pm, [2 50 ([l 50)
Agnes Martin and John McLaughlin The elder stateswoinan of US abstract art shows recent work in one of the city's finest art venues alongside paintings by the late John lvchaughlin See preweu.’ Agnes Martin and John Mc Laugh/in, lnverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, 248 2943, 74 Aug 3] Oct, llarn 5pm, free
Gary Hume The king of household gloss shows shiny new work See feature Gary Hurne New Work, Dean Gallery (Venue 69,l 624 6200 ll Aug J? Oct, Mon Sat 10am 5pm, Sun llarn 5pm, [2.50 ([l 50).
Kiki Smith The famed New Yorker artist whose papier mac he sculptures of the human body survey the fragility of life shows new Video work, drawrngs and sculptures. See revrew Krkr Smith, Frurtmarket Gallery, 225 2383, until 77 Sep, Mon—Sat
l larn~6prn, Sun noon—5pm, free.
Callum lnnes Work by the artist of gently chilled, minimalist paintings who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize a few years back. Cal/um Innes, Ingleby Gallery, 556 4447, Mon—Sat 70am—5pm, free.
Welcome The darker side of domestic bliss and lurking menace of childhood fun and games explored by artists Nicky Hoberman, Nina Saunders and Emily Bates. Welcome, Stills Gallery, 622 6200, 5 Aug—25 Sep, Tue—Sat 70am-5pm, Sun noon—5pm, lree,