festival
ART REVIEW Callum Innes 8: Patrick Heron
A t 2‘ w A tide of sandy-coloured parnt has washed across the canvas. It has left a faInt vertrcal tIde-mark agarnst a solId rectangular bank of deep charcoal grey. Above and below are slender rectangles of pure whrte.
Callum lnnes’s paIntIngs could be descrrbed as medrtatrons on colour: dense frelds of colour are set agarnst areas empty of colour. The parntrngs are rhythmrc'al: colour resonates, sometrmes heaVIIy, sometImes softly. It’s somethrng Innes clearly relrshes. Just the names of hIs paIntIngs and watercoIOurs Cadmium Orange Light/Brilliant Red Violet show that he Is someone for whom the world IS not SImply a guestron of black and whrte.
In recent years, the EdInburgh-born aI‘tIst has been shortlrsted for the Turner and Jerwoocl Prrres thc'h makes It espec Ially good to see thIs new work on home ground.
Work by PatrIc'k Heron, who dIed In Marc h, Is also shown. The Brushworlc Series of coloured etc lungs was completed the day of Heron’s death and clrsplays hrs ever-exuberant use of colour. ImperIal purple, drIbbleS of yellow, splashes of green. It Isa fIne trIbute. (Susanna Beaumont)
3’: For details, see Hit list, left.
ART REVIEW Connections
The Royal ScottIsh Academy IS a stately surte of rooms. All hrgh ceIlIngs and wooden floors, It Is space that can take work of a monumental kInd. ThIs year members of the. RSA and invrted guests show then work.
lneVItably the dIfferent Jostles WIth the IndIfferent. A host of parnted, often moody lookrng fIgureS, Sunset landscapes and Suburban VIews lIne the walls. 'Glasgow Boy' Steven Campbell shows Penelope Rescued From Her Suitors, where a stark-naked Penelope looks more than a lrttle cheesed-off WIth proceedrngs. Other names include WIIheImIna Barns
Graham and Elrzabeth Blackadder, but the show Is no fast-movrng adventure playground of contemporary art. (Susanna Beaumont)
I Connections, Royal Scottish Academy (Venue 64) 225 6677, until 79 Sep, Mon—Sat 70am—6pm, Sun 77am—6pm, free.
GROUP SHOW REVIEW Andrew Walker, Robert Innes and Alan Kilpatrick
Offenng a bIt of rural escapIsm Isa show of landscape paIntIngs by three Scotland-based parnters.
You can bathe In the brrght lIght and colour of the Beaujolars regron of France In Robert lnnes's p/ein air paIntIngs and Andrew Walker’s scenes Insprred by home and the comment. More accomplrshed are Alan KIlpatrIck’s works. Low-hangrng Skres fall over low, flat landscapes In dark purples. (Mona Jeffrey)
a Andrew Walker, Robert Innes and Alan Ki/patriclc, Firth Gallery 225 2796, Iinti/4 Sep, Mon Fri 77am Spin, Sat ll am 2pm, free.
INSTALLATION REVIEW Construction
Air's.
The ground beneath your feet. Frequently well worn but not well seen, It Is slabs of pavrng, a stretch of tarmac, a shorelrne of shIngle. Not partIcularly pIc'turesgue, but taken from floor level and shIfted 90 degrees to hang In front of your eyes, the world IS put on Its SIde.
SInce the 60s, the Boyle Famrly have reproduced In paInted fIbreglass randomly selected scruares of the Earth's surface. It Is as If they have gouged out a precie of ground. Pavements, kerbs, roads wIth yellow hires and cracked floorrng are elevated, put on a hrgher plane
In theIr first show In Scotland SInce I987, the BoyleS have taken over a ther floor flat In mm. In each of the three small rooms hangs a prece of the Earth: the floor of a demolrshed London factory, a prece of beach and a bIt of rocky terraIn. To crurse your eyes over these extraordrnaryrly real-lrfe constructs
Scenes Of The Crime: a video installation at The Bongo Club
ART REVIEW Kiki Smith ****
ANTHON‘I’ [TOFFAY GALLERY
Angels by Kiki Smith
It's a place where the magical rubs shoulders with the mythical and the strange. Hares have sunflowers for eyes and mice have eyes the colour of rubies. A howling wolf lurks and giant teardrops litter the ground.
Kiki Smith's work is born of the imagination. You get a sense that the mind of the New York-based artist is riotous with curiosity. Angels don’t so much have dirty faces in Smith's cosmic world, they are intriguing hybrids — her Angel is two-headed. And Smith does not only delve into her imagination, she is also in awe of real life - in a darkened space, two video films focus on the soft blush of a rainbow rising up from a thicket of greenery.
Elsewhere she answers back. A shelf is lined with red apples; overhead, drawings of Eve are accompanied by a soundtrack of apple chomping. This Eve is no hesitant, shame-faced nibbler, as described in countless images through the centuries. In Smith’s world, Eve eats with an unabashed hunger for knowledge. Viewing the untouched apples, one is tempted to gorge — before the decay sets in. (Susanna Beaumont)
ll Kiki Smith, Fruitmarket Gallery 225 2383, until 77 Sep, Mon—Sat 71am—6pm,
Sun noon—5pm, free
Is to see shards of glass, a scatterrng of shrngle, a frayed bIt of sackrng. It’s absorbrng. (Susanna Beaumont)
I Construction, The Boyle Family, 76 St Regent Street, 553 7776, Lint/l4 Sep,
7 lam—6pm, free.
INSTALLATION REVIEW Scenes Of The Crime ‘t t *
ThIS Is the collaboratIve chIId of Alex WillIamson, Russ Murphy and Martrn
O’NeIl. An ambItlous video Installatron,
It aims to peel away the veneer of SOClal normality, revealIng a hIdden landscape of alrenatron replete wrth the threat of psychologrcal and physical vrolence.
The dark underbelly of western bourgeors socrety has long been a
favourIte subject for fIlmmakerS, WIth artIsts such as Davrd Lynch zoomrng In on the severed ear In the long grass that lies behrnd the prcket fence. Scenes Of The Crime arms for communIcatIng a sImIIar sense of the wasteland beneath the manIcured lawns.
In a fractured narratIve, flickerrng SlIghtly out of sync across a collectIon of cheap domestic TVS, twenty
eprsodic fragments hInt at moments
of tenSIon: ’glltches In reaIIty’ and 'departures from sanctity’.
Occasronally the conjunction of the
Imagery and sound succeeds. Unfortunately the cumulative effect IS nullIerd by the one note — a drone of
alIenation. (John Beagles)
j l Scenes Of The Crime, The Bongo Club (Venue T34) until 30 Aug,
noon—5pm, free.
Edinburgh Gallery Guide 1999 THE US? 5