artfllistcouk
FILM 8 VIDEO
VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE V
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh,
Sat 31 May—Sat 19 Jul
Rosalind Nashashibi is having one hell of a year. The Glasgow- based artist has just won the Beck’s Futures 2003 award; she is about to unveil newly commissioned work as part of the Fruitmarket Gallery's Visions for the Future V programme along with Michelle Naismith; and, in June, she will be showing new work during the opening week of the Venice Biennale as part of the first ever Scottish presentation of work. The pressures are such that Nashashibi has made the decision to step out of the media limelight for the time being and concentrate on her work. A wise move, all things considered.
Graduating from the prestigious Master of Fine Art course at Glasgow School of Art in 2000, Nashashibi has been working in the medium of film. For Beck’s Futures, she submitted four 16mm films which capture ordinary, everyday lives and spaces. In the black and white film The State of Things. we are confronted with a group of elderly ladies eager to find a bargain at 3 Salvation Army jumble sale in Glasgow. Like most of her films, narrative is suspended and in its place is the soundtrack of an scratchy Egyptian love song. It is a pretty mundane scene - it could be anywhere.
Similarly in Dahiet aI Bareed (District of the Post Office), filmed in an urban neighbourhood in the West Bank, a short distance from the first Israeli checkpoint outside Jerusalem, she steered clear of the obvious images of war. A boy sets fire to a heap of rubbish; young men are playing football and another man gets a trim at the barbers. In focusing on ‘normal’, everyday life she questions what is normal. It's a very powerful piece of filmmaking.
‘Rosalind focuses on lack of action but there is this
MIXED MEDIA
ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY ANNUAL EXHIBITION
City Art Centre. Edinburgh. until Wed 11 Jun 0...
This year's RSA annual show appears to be a return to form and originality by Scottish contemporary artists. The 400 pieces of painting. SCulpture and architecture on display are fine examples of imagination and talent but as you would expect there is the occasional piece of “bullshit’ lying around.
With so many paintings on display images can start to blur. which is why it helps to be as bold as Steven Anderson whose painting. Where the Young Meet the Dead. sticks in the mind. Initially looking like a bad flashback to the 805. it soon transforms into Sinewy stripes of colour that slowly expand and contract to captivate the Viewer. Less full-on but equally memorable are the urban snapshots Created by Kate Downie's scratchy paintings.
With Peter Thomson's Surreal musical chairs and Glen Onwin's
88 TN! LIST 22 May—5 June 2003
glittering geology. soulpture is exceptionally strong With a lot of humbur and skill gomg into the designs. Janet McEwan‘s Grounded is guaranteed to raise a smile and c0uld DOSSibly be the heaVIeSt flip flops yOu'II experience this Summer while Duncan Robertson's Bronze Dress c0uld be the most macabre baby dress you've ever seen. Michael Visocchi's enchanting The Balance of Power
Rosalind Nashashibi on set of her new work, Humaniora
sense of suspense and expectation,’ says curator and writer Francis McKee. ‘You begin to realise that she is looking at things that are normally overlooked, but is almost saying that the really important things are in the dark, empty corners rather than on the central stage.’
Her films certainly force the viewer to think and she cleverly combines sound and images to great effect. In her commissioned new work for the Visions for the Future exhibition, Humaniora, her chosen subject is British hospitals, moving from Victorian hospitals to post-war buildings. She does not view them as places of trauma but a place for recovery, a therapeutic place.
‘She creates a space that is an empty space. We are so goal-orientated that we don’t really get the space to consider anything else or to think in a different way,’ says McKee. ‘And I think that in her films she is attempting to open up that space.‘
(I-Ielen Monaghan)
Grounded by Janet McLaren
looks like a giant pin Cushion stuck With needle thin wooden towers or. more imaginatively, a Surreal village from a fairytale nightmare. Lyn Wolfson's topical Warheads conjures up a production line of soldiers 0r war trophies displayed by the Victor.
With so many pieces of art on display it wOuld be impOSSibIe not to find something that matches yOur artistic bent. (Isabella WBIF)
Artbeat
News from the world of art
T-SHIRTS PERSONALISED BY artists such as Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon. Gilbert and George. Rachel Whiteread, Fiona Banner and Cornelia Parker will be auctioned off by first-year students on the prestigious Master of Fine Art Course, to help raise funds for the graduating show to travel to Mexico City in December. One hundred blank T-shirts were sent to leading artists to make their mark and will be sold off on a special online event at www.ebay.co.uk when the Interim MFA show opens at Glasgow School of Art on 16 May 2003. The T-shirts can be viewed on www.gsa.ac.uk so prepare to place your bids for the ten-day auction.
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Who gets your vote?
THE; DUNDII: VISUAI Alillf~$lf3 Awards Scheme is offering $2300 grants to artists; II‘.’|.'I(] in Dundee to help cover flit.- costs associated Wllll the creation and development of new work. Successful applicants are exi')ected to demonstrate a commitment to their artistic practice and w.ll have (MHIIO‘JOH a Significant body of work out‘mtli formal education, For more information and an application form colitact: Anna Robertson. Leissure and Arts. Dundee Contemporary Arts. 1:3? Netliergate. Dundee. DD‘z ADV or email annarobertson’m dundeecit [gov uk
VOTING’S FUN IS THE name of a project and website created by Edinburgh College of Art student Jenny Myles, as part of her final year degree show. In response to society’s fixation with reality TV and shows like Big Brother, Myles has created a group of ten ‘celebrities' from her peers and has distributed painted portraits (pictured) of them throughout Edinburgh and online. When you log onto the site - www.votingsfun.co.uk - click on your favourite image. The chart denoting the current leader is quite intriguing.