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Dundee Contemporary ‘11} x. 5' 51E? : . «3 Arts Claire Barcla ‘ ’ 'v v 1.3 “v i ys .4 d 3' ‘ . . ~56 “ s O. 4 4’ :er... tactical pursurt of ’ ’z “‘23:... 4:_ desirable objects I“ "' "‘,i’".,§ reminds me that the ' ~§ ‘3’ ’ ‘ r -
wanting/getting games we all play are riddled with doubt. inhibition and perversity.
Ideal Pursuits is the title of Barclay’s installation that consists of five artworks housed in four gallery spaces. Barclay has invested time in the development of a wide range of skills that allow her to transform domesticated materials like leather, steel, aluminium, timber, wool yarn, cane, jute. clay, canvas and deer antlers into ornaments and accessories. These curios are placed like bait around two large-scale frameworks, one made from timber and the other from aluminium rod. As my interest pulled me closer to inspect these hand- crafted props, I became drawn into a theatrical installation that physically framed me and my curiosity.
Like items stolen on impulse. some of the works in the exhibition represent naked opportunism more than a cultivated need. An expanse of khaki rip-stop fabric has been sewn and puckered to form a tailored wall of inverted darts and tucks that transects one of the smaller galleries. This wall of fabric blocked the access to the gallery space and kept me on the outside of the artwork. wondering if
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there was an inside.
While walking around the exhibition, I thought about Barclay weaving, printing, sewing, polishing and arranging this installation and in the farthest gallery she had left me a candid note. A small framed drawing is hung on the gallery wall. It represents disembodied hands emerging from clay pots; these hands are in turn making more clay pots in a kind of eternal Escheresque loop.
Barclay’s blithe confidence belies an exhibitionist who has shed her anxieties for the risky pursuit of a visual creativity that prioritises process over product. As work in progress Ideal Pursuits gave me the opportunity to enjoy thinking about familiar materials as part of a world which is plastic and malleable by our desires. Following her successful representation for Scotland at the Venice Biennial, Barclay has returned to a playful and investigative practice for this solo exhibition of fearless experimentation. (Sarah Tripp)
MIXED MEDIA
News from the world of art
MARTIN BOYCE HAS WON this year's Archibald. Campbell and Harley WS Award, beating off competition from Claudine Hartzel, Lucy Levene, Alexander and Susan Maris and James Thornhill. The Glasgow-based artist picked up at cheque for £5000 for his series of monochrome digital images full of text and Saul Bass-style grids. and for two polarised prints of classic modernist design. You can see his winning work along with the shortlisted artists' entries at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh until Saturday 20 September.
Photography prize winner Martin Boyce
MARKET GALLERY IN
Glasgow is hosting artists' residencies until ()ctobei 900:6 Tim Facey and James liodgsori Will be resident from If) September until 17 October and the gallery wrll be open to Visitors on Thursday afternoons from
GREEN MARGARINE
Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, until Fri 26 Sep 000
Green Margarine is a look at the lite and lifestyle of James McNeil! Whistler by members of Lapland, a Glasgow- based art and deSign collective. The title alludes to Whistler's habit of dying the food he served at his regular Sunday breakfasts — which were equal parts literary salon, performance and I.
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installation — to match the tablet-rare. This show turns on such details of Whistler's parallel concerns as dandrfied wrt. interior decorator. collector and all—round sybaritic aesthete.
Co-Curator Hugh Pi/ey opens with Arrangement in Green and Aubergine. a collection of junk-shop china. carefully presented on purpose-built shelwng. each plate and cup (l(}|l(§éll(}l‘, rebranded with the Lapland collectives
Maria McCavana's blue and white glass paint on port glasses
logo and ll‘()llff; tron‘ \.’\./hist|er's o~.-.rn collection of china. A second piece. Frappe in Light and Gold. reneals glass trinkets, hanging charidelierrlike front the ceiling. domesticating the srnali gallen, space wrth a nod to \."t/lllf$l|(}l"53 own dining rooiit.
Jane Topping bones in on \"Jhistler's passion for presentation ‘.‘.’llll {-3/ue and Silver; A Screen as the Artist's Stud/o. one side of which features a rather mannered reconstruction of Toppings own studio parall, Patrick Macklin. the shows other curator. ll‘tlf;(:f$ on \"Jhrstler's fetish for collectibles .‘rith perspex. steel and pl, .nood constructions holding a sliver of embroidered silk mounted like a butterfly Ian Balc'i is sirhiiari. tangential. his £1853(:ll‘l)!£l{}‘:53élllllfllllf) to the breakfast menus ‘\.i‘."histler carefully catalogued.
Green .'.’7.'ir_r}arine is a fascinating route into ‘.‘\.’histler‘s life étl‘fl art aid. while much of the .‘rork here at first seen‘s obscure. in ’Z’Lll‘l)rl‘iéill')l‘. .‘.’|’.". those pieces based cr‘ rio'e recognsabte rele’O'VJCS. lt ri‘akes for an exocatue sitie.-.a,s gi:anr;e at their
subject. Jack Mottran‘»
4—6pm. The artists VJIH give a talk about their work on Thursday ’2 October from 0pm and the Closing event takes places on 15) October from 6~~9prn For more information call 0141 55:36 0/6 or email: market gallen/(a/
tale 1 com.
FIVE SCOTTISH BUILDINGS are competing for the RIAS Award for Architecture with a £25,000 prize donated by Andrew Doolan and the Point Hotel. The shortlist includes Westport. Evolution House, Edinburgh (Reiach and Hall Architects); Mossman House. Edinburgh (Arcade Architects); Kilncraigs Mill Redevelopment, Alloa (LDN Architects); Radisson SAS Hotel, Glasgow (Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects) and An Turas, Tiree (Sutherland Hussey Architects). The winner will be announced on Friday 3 October at the Point Conference Centre in Edinburgh.
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