PREVIEW Ernesto Neto
Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Arts, Sat 29 Jul—Sun 10 Sep.
Looking at Ernesto Neto's sculptural installations is a bit like finding yourself on the set of Fantastic Voyage. You remember: the 1966 classic sci-fi film with Raquel Welsh and her medical crew miniaturised and injected into the bloodstream of a Czech scientist. Here we find futuristic, organic, cellular sculptures reminiscent of the internal workings of the body.
The Brazilian-born artist takes the furniture, films and music of the 605 and 705 as his inspiration. He is also
I greatly influenced by the work of Lygia Clark and Helio
Oiticica, members of the avant-garde neo-concrete movement of the late 1950s in Rio de Janeiro. Transforming the DCA’s exhibition space, Neto will be creating his largest nave (vessel or ship) to date. Measuring a staggering eighteen metres long and ten metres wide, Neto’s suspended structures make full use of the gallery’s confines. ‘I try to think of space as if it were hyperspace, as if I could work in another dimension,’ he says. 'I want people to lose themselves inside this transparent labyrinth, a labyrinth of time.‘ Using an off-white membranous lycra material
Futuristic, organic. cellular sculptures
resembling 10 denier tights, these immense, translucent sculptural forms are contorted, stretched, pushed and pulled in opposite directions. Like huge inflated airbags, parts of the sculpture are filled with pungent spices. sand and styrofoam. You can mould your body around the works, prod and poke them, walk within their structure and smell their aroma. Stepping inside his creation is like journeying inside the body's circulatory system, the fleshy tones of the lycra conjuring up images of the outer layers of the skin. And with Neto's work, we're no longer kept at arm's length.
’It's such a rarity to be allowed to touch work, never mind actually get inside it,’ says curator Katrina Brown. ’The other main feature is the sensory thing. As much as the work invades space, the work invades your own body in terms of how it deals with your physical space but also the smells attacking you before you get to it.’
Neto’s work is certainly different. Following his successful residency at London's ICA earlier in the year, Scottish audiences will be able to partake in his unusual sensory experience. ‘The fun bit is there but they are quite disturbing and disorientating both spatially and in terms of your own sense of scale,’ says Brown. 'I think the show will be hugely enjoyable, but will make people feel quite uncomfortable as well.’
(Helen Monaghan)
PREVIEW ' Carol Rhodes
Glasgow: Tramway, Fri 28 Jul—Sun 27 Aug.
.zo
Industrial Landscape Il. 1998
5 Tramway’s Project Room continues its
' reopening season with a solo show
from Carol Rhodes, marking the close
90 THE “ST 20 Jul—3 Aug 2000
of her three month residency at the newly refurbished arts venue.
One of Scotland’s most successful contemporary painters, Rhodes was nominated for the Jerwood Prize For Painting last year and is included in this year’s British Art Show. She produces painterly landscapes, marked out by the fact that all are from a distant aerial viewpoint.
'I use photos as a source,’ Rhodes explains, 'both my own and ones from geography textbooks, but I change those views through the process of drawing and painting, and take parts from the sources to form a new unreal
landscape.’ The detailed, precise views contain much that is familiar, but the
unconventional view of unpopulated, unreal landscapes gives the works an uneasy, claustrophobic air. As Rhodes explains, this effect is more accident than design: ’I work intuitively, and it’s only when other people point out
interpretations that I stand back and have to say, "You’re right". It all came out of the blue, really.’
The Tramway exhibition consists of a retrospective and three new works produced during the painter’s residency, giving visitors a chance to track her career to date.
’I know it sounds like an ongoing project,’ Rhodes says, ’but I don’t really think of the paintings as a series. I work intuitively, so it’s a much more organic process. It should be interesting to see the earlier landscapes with the new work — the first pieces are from a much closer viewpoint, and since then I’ve been moving further and further out.’
This show precedes solo outings in Santa Monica and New York, giving Scottish art lovers the chance to catch the latest in Rhodes’ sequence of aerial views alongside early works before the painter moves further toward international acclaim. (Jack Mottram)
Artbeat
News and views from the world of art
THE BEST THINGS in life are free, so the saying goes and Edinburgh's National Galleries is taking note. To celebrate 150 years in the business, you can leave your purse at home as entry to all Festival exhibitions won't cost you a single penny. But only on Saturday 12 August. It's the organisation's way of thanking all its loyal visitors who have supported them over the years. And if that wasn't enough, a special gala picnic is also planned on the same day, located on the lawns in front of the Gallery of Modern Art.
BOTTICELLI'S MASTERPIECE The Virgin Adoring The Sleeping Christ Child is currently resident at the Art Gallery & Museum Kelvingrove, Glasgow until Sunday 6 August. Purchased by the National Gallery of Scotland back in 1999, it has been carefully restored to its former glory. A series of talks on Botticelli accompany the display before it returns to Edinburgh.
A MAJOR CONFERENCE is planned by the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, with the support of Historic Scotland and the City of Edinburgh. Urban Pride: Living And Working In World Heritage Village on Saturday 9 September will include representatives from other European historic cities and international conservation bodies. For registration and further information contact the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, 343 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1PW, 0131 225 8818.
AND FINALLY WORLDART.COM is looking for new content for the launch of its site next month. The team behind the Festival Revue which showcased over 1000 performances from Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, is now providing a video streaming website (wwwworldartcom) which broadcasts live festivals from around the world along with informative arts editorial, digital and video art with the aim of making the arts more accessible to a global audience. Open to both up-and- coming and established artists. Send your artwork initially on VHS format to Worldartcom Ltd, 12 Torphichen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8JQ. For further information call Patricia Munoz on 0131 248 2020.
Worldart.com