ART
Work by Miguel Leal at Glasgow School Of Art
FESTIVAL Plano XXI: Portuguese Contemporary Art
Glasgow: Various venues, Sat 16 Sep-Sat 14 Oct. See Art listings.
Glasgow had better prepare rtself for a Portuguese rnvasron. Contemporary venues across the city wrll play host to a nrrmber of exhrbrtrons, frlm screenrngs and concerts, whrc'h together form Plano XXI, a festrval whrch hopes to hrghlrght Portuguese contemporary art and to. grve an rnsrght rnto what rs a much less famrlrar art world
Portugal rs often lumped together wrth Sparn, rts brgger, more dontrnar‘t next-door nerghbour, yet rt rs a country that has rts own language, culture and rdentrty Portugal also has rts own hrstory, and rt rs one that rs shot through wrth polrtrcal unrest, drctatOrshrp and rsolatron lt rs only rn the last 25 years that Portugal has regarned democracy, transformed rts socrety, economy and culture, and rediscovered rts real self The young Portuguese ar‘trsts rnvolvecl rn P/ano XX/
PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION True Glasgow: Tramway, until Sat 16 Sep
True rs an rnstallatron and perforrrrance prece by a new collective of artrsts called Frerce comprrsrng Kevrn Frrtnan ldrrectorr, Rosa Sanchez unstaliatronr, Alarn Baumann lsounclr, AL Kennedy (scrrptt and Deborah Pope raerral desrgnr We can leave Kennedy and Pope out of the yguatron as they are more rnvolved wrth True the performance (though rt's clrffrc ult to see what spoken word and aerral photography wrll add to thrs currorrs mc-langer but thrs rnteractrve vrsual brrdge betx'reen art anci theatre mrsses on nearly every level
The rnstallatron's bylrne rs 'A love Story Of Strange Loves' and contarns a
68 THE “31' 7-21 Sep 2000
his interactive visual bridge between art and theatre misses o
are a new, promrsrng generation It IS therr art, created over the last ten years, whrch best reflects the newfound rdentrty of a modern day Portugal
Enc‘ompassrng a wrde range of exhrbrtrons rn drfferent medra, P/ano XXI also features a serres of interrelated round-table drsc‘ussrons, where Scottrsh and Portuguese artrsts wrll be rnvrted to wrangle over the frner pornts of both contemporary Portugal and Scotland Screenrngs of cuttrrrg-edge Portuguese frlms and evenrngs full of progr‘essrve Portuguese soundtracks at The Arches round up the whole 'P/ano XX/ experience
One of the programme's curators, Glasgor.'~.'-based artrst Antonro Rego, hopes that thrs Porto-Fest wrll help 'contextualrse and debate the rmportance of Portuguese art, and art rn general rn the context of European rdentrty' Plano XX/ should allow us to not only consrder the modern
rndryrclualrty of a more rnter‘natronal 21st century Portugal, but also our own cultural character rn thrs thrng called Europe rClarre Nlrtchellr
n nearly every level
grant etch-a-sketch, a curved lrght box wrth some pretentious sentence runnrng across rt and a laptop on a pedestal that allows you to create a serres of dull rmages on a larger screen There's also a spher‘rcal metal stand that looks lrke a pogo strck fronted by an airplane TV screen thrs rs some sort of vorce rec ognrtron test and frnally there are some werght actrvatecl loungers that scream neurotrc rnanrtres at you The space rs enc rrc led by cotton projector screens, about ten of whrch show your usual serres of slow rnovrng rrnages of someone clorng sornethrng mundane Place thrs work next to anythrng created by the proneers of thrs cannrbalrstrc genre Anderson, John lesur‘un, Jan Febre, longo or even Nauman at a push and you soon realrse that thrs has no form and worse strll, no heart (Paul Dale)
Anna Lobner — Elm's End Glasgow: Bulkhead until Fri 6 Oct
For the elm tree a red cross srgnals the end For us, rt rarses rssues of publrc safety versus feelrngs of loss of nature. When artrst Anna Lobner saw these . trees last March rn Kelvrngrove Park, ‘~, 7".» $1.. therr fate rntrrgued her Lobner Elm’s End No 7 documented all 51 clrseased trees through therr rnrtral markrng and therr fellrng, before contrnurng to parnstakrngly count the rrngs on each and every tree stump Once she had determrned the age of each hewn down tree, she stencrlled ‘brrth' and 'death' dates onto each drsprrrted stump, creatrng a serres of tombstones, wrth srmple eprtaphs that evoke the srngular hrstorres of each tree Lobner clarms that ‘the turnrng of a tree stump rnto a tombstone rs an rnformatrve srgn as well as an emotronalrsmg gesture to the drsappearance of the elm' Suddenly the fallen tree has rts very own personal hrstory.
Alongsrde the stumps to be found rn Kelvrngrove Park, Lobner’s work rs also on drsplay at the Bulkhead 24-Hour Vrewrng Wrndow The clocumentatron of Lobner's project, rncludrng extremely beautrful, map-lrke tracjrngs of the ever- decreasrng rrngs, wrll be avarlable for vrewrng at c'ertarn pornts over the duratron of the exhrbrtron
E/m’s End becomes a process where one artwork exrsts srmultaneously rn a varrety of drfferent modes. It also allows us to respect the unsung hrstorres of these fallen elms rClarre Mrtchellr
Made Space
Stirling: The Changing Room until Sat 23 Sep
Changrng Room’s overVrew of contemporary Brrtrsh drawrng ranges from work that pushes the rneclrum rnto new terrrtory and good old- " fashroned prctures clone wrth pencrls and pens
Margaret Prrest's three works seem focused on what mrght otherwrse be consrderecl peripherals paper and frame The titles confrrm thrs, ernestone, A/urnrn/u/n and Stee/ clesc rrbe the off-square frames whrc h contarn prec es of textured handmade paper, unrformly shaded rn grey to match the surroundrng metal or stone Alan Johnston strcks to stark blocks of shaclrng rn hrs symmetrrcal drptych, Untrt/ed and, lrke Priest, eschews drawrng rn the conventronal sense
Claude Heath's swrrls of dots parnted clrrectly on the gallery wall look lrke layer after layer of Renarssance cartoons, Just about suggestrng the forms rrttplrecl by hrs trtles After the srdelong glances rn the clrrectron of clramng presented by therr fellows, N'largarrta Glu7berg and Charles Avery come off lrke bra/en hussres Gluzberg shows clrstrnctly eerre penc rl portrarts of brg wrgs floatrng rn \.‘.'hrte space and domrnatrng the smaller of Changrng Room's marn spaces Avery, too, grves the commonplace a spooky twist, wrth nods towards 80s fashron =llustr‘atron two drawrngs snow glum frgures rn clothes halfway between churcl‘. yestments and Dynasty day-wear and rrnpossrbly regular Venn clragrams on graph paper (Jack Mottramr
Margarita Gluzberg’s eerie pencil portraits of big wigs
James Lumsden Glasgow: Loft Gallery until Sat l6 Sep
Edrnburgh-based artrst James Lumsden follows up hrs recent resrdency and solo show at the Aalborg Trrennral rn Denmark, wrth an exhrbrtron of stark yet emotrve canvases at Glasgow's Loft Gallery
There are two separate, yet rnter'related serres of work on show the marn group of works come from Lumsden’s D/vrded V/srons serres, and . . rs affrrmed by a second, smaller serres Div's'on 2000 of parntrngs entrtled Utop/as. The DIV/(T0d l/rs'rons parntrngs are planes of suffused lrght, rrnpeded by symmetrrcal panels of dark colour In Utopras, the parntrngs are set on the wall as a serres of small canvases, lrttered wrth a layer of lumrnescent rnarkrngs, and rnterspersed wrth a number of equally sr/ed plarn grey colour frelds The two serres are vrsually very drfferent, but wrth both serres, the notron of the ratronal rrnprngrng on the rrratronal seems to pervade
Lumsclen's work has been described as ‘abstract mrnrmalrsm’, and hrs poetrc vrsron can be drscoverecl rn seernrngly forrnulrsecl works, whrch are also swollen Wrth sprrrtual harmony The cerebral confr‘ontrng the ephemeral Hrs works evaluate the romantrc notron of Utopra, and leave you to contemplate for yourself the lrght at the end of the tunnel (Clarre Mrtc hell)