Art
MIXED MEDIA THE ECHO SHOW
Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 21 Dec 0...
At first, The Echo Show seems to be labouring under the weight of its curatorial McGuffin. The work here, we are told in an accompanying note, is all about echoes, across time, genre and modes of practice. Dub music is evoked, and Phil Spector gets a mention. Once inside Tramway 2, though, you might be hard pressed to see the common ground between work shown and aims expressed. At first, that is.
Susan Philipsz’ Aviary gets the ball rolling, with its call and response of whistles and hoots that echo, obviously, across the space. Under one of Philipsz’ speakers sits a brace of works by Camilla Low. Elsewhere, her geometric patterns, embossed metal sheeting and ceiling-suspended hoops might spark other ideas, but here they hint at Peter Saville’s design work for Factory Records, which in turn evokes Martin Hannett’s production for the label.
Next, Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann map conflicts along the banks of the River Riachulo in Argentina and, again, the show reconfigures it, masking the plain view that this is a bluntly political work, demanding that it be seen as 3
INSTALLATION STORM: DALZIEL
Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Sun 7 Mar
shifting consideration of time-and space-spanning geo-political echoes. There are explicitly echo-driven works too, of course, like Philipsz’, Rasmus Knud and Soren Andreasen‘s jerry-built acetate cutter, and co- curator Lars Bang Larsen quoting Ad Rheinhardt, but the strength in the show resides in a curious space between the pre-echo of immediate interpretation and the nagging doubts, prompted by the show’s title, that there is more to be uncovered if
;>,l {N i MAKING EDITIONS ALECTO
COO City Art Centre,
Edinburgh, until GOMA's lurid entrance hall, clad in a not of mirror glass, '.'/l|| Sat 10 Jan always be a painful reminder of the havoc wreaked by its ....
former director. Back in those bad old days. Julian Spalding embarked on a II‘ISSIOII to rid the world of ‘conceptual' art. and instead overfilled Golle with spangly ‘pop' art.
Thank God that has changed. Now. the Golle team has begun to rid the building of its associations; with its recent past. and the ground floor space has been stripped back to make the best of its elegant neo-classical proportions. The result Ionce you're past that entrance hall: is suddenly one of the most interesting spaces for art in Glasgow.
Dal/iel - Scullion have responded spectacularly to the new space. creating a dark cave in which to show a series of images (there's a different one every day; entitled Storm. On the day of my Visit. the vast screen contained a photograph of Scottish woodland. an iininersive close-up of young saplings grownig through grass whose hues are as shockingly green as the first flush of spring. A stream runs through this niicro—landscape and it's simply beautiful. The single image alone may struggle to live up to the space. but nevertheless. Storm (Z()Il]lll'()f3 a striking vision of
the Scottish sublime. (Nick Barleyi
A striking vision of the Scottish sublime
94 THE LIST 7/ No'. l1 Dec 7001‘}
Thanks to Editions Alecto. prrntmaking in Britain in the (30s managed to n‘irror the era's popular culture xeitgeist and highlight the shadowy relationship between art and Editions Alecto itself grew from an undergraduate
Still from The Lost Film by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joeige
you listen closely enough.
In myth, Echo was condemned to forever repeat for her eagerness to reply: given Tramway’s uncertain future, there is a final sad echo about the show but, with a concentration on uncovering links between artists and their work across geographic, stylistic and temporal boundaries that matches Tramway’s programme, it also offers an eloquent reply to those planning to silence the space.
(Jack Mottram)
Concerning Marriages (walking) 1964 by Allen Jones
student selling prints to colleagues into an iiiternaticnally i'eiio\.-.iiie(l supplier of original graphics by artists such as Hockney and P£l()l()//I. Although the end product was
ultimately a con‘niodity. artistic creativity was not
coinpron‘ised. a fact borne out by this exhibition x-xhich teens
with an originality that is still as fresh and ‘.’Il)f£lllt 3.0 years later. Looking as Paolom's groiindlireaking screenprints. which
IIsabella Weir)
managed to guell accusations of unoriginality. it is easy to see the deliberation and effort he put into these and the influence he had on Peter Sedgley's trippy fluorescent screenprints and the quiet studies of colour created by Robyn Denny.
All three were striving to push the boundaries of printn‘aking as was Allen Jones. whose interest in photography and printmaking allowed him to produce hun‘orous prints clearly influenced by advertising. His iuxtaposition of the two clexerly turns 20 into SD. The cinematic experience inforn‘s the work of Colin Self who turns the obiect into the subject by enlarging them to giant parodies. In his work he used the ultimate ()l)j(}(II » that of the hun‘an body. This was his attempt to capture the essence. the ghost of S()II‘.(}()II()S e><istence. If is £l|‘.‘.’£l\‘f; valuable to see a point in art when someone's an‘bition is enough n‘omentum to engender a l)()f3ltl\.'(} lasting change.
PAINTING
JOHN MCLEAN Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 13 Dec 000
Big, bold. beautiful -— all the b words seem to Jump out at you when walking into the Talbot Rice. McLean's huge canvases hung With nice wide spaces in between are fresh and easy on the eye: confident assertions of themselves as colourful abstractions.
The Liverpudlian artist's first solo exhibition was here in 1975 and after stints in New York and London, he has returned with his latest work. And you can't help but be drawn to it. Red. green and orange lop-sided Circles sit on a black surface or is that behind? As Jllh all abstract work whose play is with surface and arrangement of shape. pattern and colour. the different flat forms shimmy on the canvas pushing themselves
Big, bold and beautiful
backwards and fonuards in the mind's eye. The mixture of solidity and translucence adds to a sense of movement. To my admittedly fuzzy head. the gentle shifting of colour was hypnotising and calming. But then so are the Teletubbies bounCIng around their grassy mounds.
Although there is obviously no comparison to the TV creatures \rvhatsoever. the nagging question does sneak in. tainting the initial pleasure of Mcl eans works of —- is this all? With \.'ariations on a theme. they are attractive and if you had a big white wall. you might well want to hang a McLean on it -< they look great in the Talbot Rice's any space. but where \‘JIH he go from here?
There are glimpses into the past upstairs but new frontiers need to be envisaged for Mclean's work to remain as dynamic and alive as it can. at its best. be. (Ruth Hedges»