SC APESE
KENNY HUNTER: FREESTYLE MONUMENTAL! Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 22 Mar 000.
Not happy with a retrospective in the traditional sense, Kenny Hunter set himself the task of reworking six of his existing sculptures. The modifications are subtle, ranging from the addition of an extra plinth to a change in colour.
Hunter’s formerly white Bad Conscience and the Old Skool Plastik has been painted black. Placed among the 19th century bronzes of the neo-classical Torrie Collection, Hunter gives the work a veneer of academy. Sitting on a base of American walnut is a pile of skulls, rats, bones, money and gun cartridges. In Fisher Price-style plastic lettering are the words ‘Finis Gloria Mundi' (‘end of worldly glory’). Like much of Hunter's work, it's a contemplative and poignant piece. In his contemporary monument, Hunter parodies the public sculpture that glorifies war.
In the minimal design of the White Gallery, Dub Monument resonates within the space. The bust of a black head with a huge Afro sits atop 8 dub sound system, giant boombastic speakers either side. Hunter has further raised its plinth by the addition of crates. creating a hybrid between a sound stage and a
monument. It speaks volumes, drawing our attention to the implicit racism that has shaped art collections and informed the classical sculptural tradition. Hunter’s fascination with space travel and technology is explored in Space Ape II. He places the head of a chimpanzee experiencing the G- force on top of a pillar made from buckets and bins - an ode to all the animal astronauts launched in space in the 608. He’s reworked Time and Space Died Yesterday, the sculpture
Dub Monument
of a toy-like plane crashing into a wall, in the style of Roy Lichtenstein's pop art. With its red, yellow and grey colouring, it looks as though it has jumped off the pages of a Batman comic and splattered on the wall with an almighty ‘kapow!’ Made soon after the Concorde crash, this piece is particularly thought-provoking. especially in light of the recent space shuttle disaster. Is this the price humanity has to pay for technological advancements? (Helen Monaghan)
MIXED MEDIA JOANNE TATHAM AND TOM O’SULLIVAN Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Fri 21 Mar
This has Reached the Limit Conditions of its Own Rhetoric is as impenetrable as its title Suggests. The big black oblong obelisk Sits in the middle of the Modern Institute's small space like an uninVited Intruder. The Surface looks like it has been made from compacted waste matter daubed in some nOxiouS preservative chemical. A hole Cut thr0ugh the centre of the piece frames a skewed View of the street Outside. and so forces the Viewer to negotiate a way ar0und it. past it. away from it. The thing even smells threatening.
Like past pieces by Tatham and O'Sullivan (The Glamour. a construction of rubble and neon lighting, springs to mind). this is a weighty, imposmg installation, but one that plays its cards infuriatineg close to itS chest. In this company. you might expect Alan Michael's untitled painting to struggle for attention. but the two turn out to be complementary. Michael renders his Subiect — a woman in a trackswt glanCing nervoosly over her sh0ulder — in a clipped. precise style. Behind her, thOugh, scratchy pencil marks and flat blocks of coIOur make up a tangled mess of street scenes. Clawmg hands and indistinct faces.
This is an uncomfonable show but it Succeeds. thanks to what may be a happy modem. in the iuxtaposition of a work that provokes a reaction of mistrust and confUSion With another that depicts that state. (Jack Mottram)
A weighty, imposing lnstalllon
Tattooed Lady as Witness to a New Dawn by Rob Churm
GROUP SHOW
SOME ART
Lloyd Jerome Gallery, Glasgow, until Wed 26 Mar .0.
Don't be fooled by the flippant title of Some Art. Continuity is key here. The show features mainly Glasgow-based artists including Rob Churm. GregOr Wright. Lorna McIntyre. Dawd Shrigley and Jad Fair. Rob Churm's Tattooed Lady as Witness to a New Dawn offers an interesting reworking of a Classical nude pose With the figure becoming clothed within her tattooed th0ughts for the future and connects well with the carved and enlarged heart of Forever by Rhona McMillan.
Jad Fair is a musician, writer and Outsider artist who has produced a series of playful paperCUts. Like many crafts. papercutting is enpying a reSurgence With, for example. Simon PeritOn's delicate and dextrous use of the medium taking paperCutting to the extreme. Fair's innocent works are reminiscent of a rainy day actiVity. complementing the aesthetic spiralling gloss fOrmS of Mclntyre's Not Great Men lsix Stud/QS/ and the playfulness apparent in DaVld Shrigley's photograph.
Humour is the essence also in GregOr Wright's DelusiOns of Grandeur where vari0us aquatic vertebrates and crustaceans replace meteorites and planets in a warped reworking of sci-ii imagery. But it is Shrigley who has procuced the mOSI 'i'in/ly appropriate piece. His enlarged image of faces bored into three teeth is both dark and humer0us and enough to make the haroiest dental patient heao fer the em. iSorcha Dallasi
Art
:2 \‘ 5
THE PRINT IN ITALY 1 550-1 620 National Gallery. Edinburgh. until Sun 27 Apr 000
.ltitlS a} . "2‘ '..lt"".t~ °' tifft" "‘P't‘ . :M t‘.) .it‘o..'~.>':: t :: .l k". ‘.".t‘. «its .ifltit‘ufllnt’ tut) .'.U"\, artisans slur" as o' "1"‘ake's. tut :: Ki.) usuri‘nd "wt-1‘ i‘i.‘. g." 's "‘e F" "3 " 1i i. '55»?
Own: {ms t i:' "f'i‘ak "t; 3.1:: ‘ .‘_.l $9th a".: :3' "T'WMv'tl Latin: {‘t‘ (Pf‘l{.)it).t?.l ii, .i". :;‘.:; stun" .i~: Titian Tai‘t.>'e'.tc 1".) Ve'o'leSe 1;: "Hwy 99;: t-s 3‘ their art Oil :tci'.""is;t;is"iui tv <lt>::;i"‘er‘t t“.t,"‘i'.§§ scenes. festmgiis LIY‘Ll perverts Bur. hat; USESOWHVOLIJ{I1>lft?t73'Ll’T"'l"l the Britis"f\i1t18(?ti""ts archims that shims t'it- scope. (Maoist) anti Me's“. intolyed l." the p'o'ftiittizw‘ .if this art form
Studies of Feet, 1608 by Odoardo Flaletti
Exaii‘iples revea: the process of print experimefltation including the balanCing of tone heightening light here. deepening shade there. And With the different technidues — engraving. etching. woodCuI — there are strong SCulptural elements to the WOfk where lines that are cross—hatChed. scraped and incised give a unique dynamisin to the image that is different from the smooth oil finish of paintings. Human muscles. horses flanks. Clouds and water all have a strong Olly/SlCaiIII,’ and definitio'w that is surprising in the 'static' print medium,
The exhibition opens yOLir eyes to many Such unthOught of possibilities. lt is lust a shame that the wOrks are displayed on chtfed boards that sadly detract from their overal‘ effect. If there was a chance to hang the exhibition in a space Such as the new Queen's Gallery, this much- acc|aimed show opuld have truly ShOne. iRuth Hedgesi
' 3—2” .‘Ja' 2L1: THE LIST 89