The Audience Business
City Art Centre
Scotland’s Art An Infinite Storm of Beauty
The City Art Centre exhibition programme for the final Edinburgh Festival this century reflects the search for identity. and sense of antiCIpation. abroad in Scotland in this historic summer of I999. Scotland's ‘capital' exhibition space presents two exhibitions which celebrate Scottish achievement and creativity in the past while sending a message to the future.
Scotland's Art assembles the cream of Scottish art held in civic and academic collections across ScotlandThe exhibition both charts the major influences and significant movements that have distinguished Scottish art in the past. while featuring the work of contemporary artists whose creatiVity guarantees that a distinctive Scottish v0ice Wlll continue to be heard in the new century and millennium.
John MUir left his native Dunbar and Scotland for the United States ofAmerica in I849. but his lS another Scottish vo:ce relevant to our times. The dawning of a momentous date in human chronology causes US to reflect on the Sur‘VIval of humanity. and the thirty mil- lion other plant and animal species With which we share the planet. An Infinite Storm of Beauty documents MUir's life and achievements through contemporary paintings. early and modern photography of the Wild places he loved and personal possesSions and artifacts. As the new Scottish Parliament conSiders the deSIgnation of Loch Lomond and Cairngorm as Scotland's first ‘national parks'. it IS only appropriate that the vision ofJohn Muir should inform that debate. The exhibition reclaims the American 'preservationist' as a Scottish icon. but one With modern and international relevance.
City Art Centre, 2 Market Street
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Trading Station Alpha (MA by Mike Nelson
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John Muir, Presewatlonlst
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Collective Gallery
Mike Nelson: To The Memory Of H.P.Lovecraft
"It walked in the woods.
It was never born, It e><isted. Under the pine needles the fires burn. deep and smokeless in the mold. in heat and in darkness and decay there IS growthThere IS life and there IS growth. It grew. but it was not alive. It walked unbreathing through the weeds. and thought and saw and was hideous and strong. and it was not born and it did not live. It grew and moved about without liVing.
It crawled out of the darkness and hot damp mold into the cool of the morning. It was huge . ..
It had no mercy. no laughter: no beauty. It had strength and great intelligence . ..
It scrabbled painfully With its half-formed hands. beating the ground and the bole of a tree . . .
It began searching."
(extract from IT. Theodore Sturgeon)
Mike Nelson. who is currently Sculpture Research Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art. creates an on—site installation at the Collective.
Additionally. Everything Must Go.’ provides you with the opportunity to invest in original art by some of Scotland's hottest artists buy yourself a slice of New Scottish Talent!
Collective Gallery, 22-28 Cockburn Street
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