Art
SCULPTURE 8. PRINTS
LOUISE BOURGEOIS: STITCHES IN TIME Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 9 May .0000
As if engaged in a macabre maypole dance, a couple of slips, a prim blouse, a chemise and a black sequinned cocktail dress dangle from alarmingly large bones strung from meat hooks around a central pole. The work Untitled 1996 - bares many of artist Louise Bourgeois’ hallmarks: it’s an arranged marriage between the brutal and the familiar; the homey and the menacing. At 92 Louise Bourgeois is at the peak of her career. Where many artists slide gracefully into their dotage Bourgeois is still producing work so raw it hurts. Stitches in Time is bracketed by two suites of etchings - one from 1947, the other from 1999. The rest of the exhibition, as the title suggests, is made up of work that has been variously sewn, upholstered and stuffed. As a child Bourgeois helped her parents in their business repairing old tapestries, so her use of fabric is a return to a familiar material. The doll-like figures she creates have a peculiar blankness to them, as if they have been flayed. They are, as curator Frances Morris
relationships.
MIXED MEDIA THE 19608 Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, until Mon 3 May 000.
The celebration of 60s art at the Dean Gallery encompasses both pop and geometric art: images that signify a generation's need for social and political change.
Irrespective of how many times you see a Warhol or a Lichtenstein reproduction the original is always unfamiliar as you become aware of the subtle nuances of shape and colour and the Craft employed. Lichtenstein‘s blown up comic strips create a strong impact. As you trace the Ben- Day dots and the sharp lines. you become increasingly aware of the techniques employed. Warhol's seemingly dispassionate art comes alive with every little distortion.
Pop art is humorous and confusing. Humorous as in Hockney's tired Indians who although surveying the plains have a little plastic chair to sit on or the three figures in Linder's painting who look like Mr Ben and Poirot caught in a menage a trois. Confusing when you look at giant keyholes. large watches and flattened olive oil tins and try to appreciate the aesthetics.
The aesthetics of geometric art are easier to appreciate especially when contemplating the moving lines of Riley or the pure colours of Albers. These works strip the image of external references so that the gaze disappears into the depth. swallowed up by the canvas.
Most images of the 605 are already well known but the pleasure in seeing them never diminishes. (Isabella Weir)
In the Car, 1963 by Roy Lichtenstein
88 THE LIST l~ If} Apr 2004
has pointed out, like the dolls a psychologist might use to encourage a child to recall memories of abuse.
Downstairs, like ancient toothless soothsayers, a set of open-mouthed, crudely made, upholstered heads have a disturbing life of their own. In other works, Bourgeois uses reoccurring motifs such as women’s bodies, tables, beds, houses and spirals as props in her reconstruction of the psychodrama of human
Bourgeois has lived through many
Stitches in Time (installation view)
of arts ‘isms’ (surrealism, abstract expressionism, minimalism) but continues to tread her own idiosyncratic path. She was the first woman ever to have a retrospective at MOMA in New York and was commissioned to produce a major new work for the opening of Tate Modern.
The freshness and immediacy of her work is undimmed by her grande dame status. It’s rare to see an exhibition of this quality in Scotland. (Kate Tregaskis)
Port Ruysdael
PAINTING TURNER: THE LATE SEASCAPES Burrell Collection, Glasgow, until Sun 23 May 0...
Now that the chill has all but disappeared from the air and that fresh spring feeling is closing in, it's a fine time for the Burrell Collection to exhibit this collection of work by Joseph MW Turner, probably the most skilled of artists when it comes to recreating nature's most evocative vistas.
Concentrating largely on the last ten years of his life, until his death in 1851. these works take the sea. the coast and all things aquatic as their starting point. Hence, as well as imagination-firing seascapes and ruminations on the mythical properties of the oceans. there are also a few pencil sketches and simple watercolours depicting beach scenes or still-life fish — echoing the artist's interest in all things marine.
These are all just window-dressing, however, in the face of some truly incredible large-scale canvasses which are all too easy to examine, re-examine and eventually just lose yourself in. The cumbersomely-titled Rockets and Blue Lights (close at hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water. for example. presents a murky but striking image of flares brightening the coastal sky as impassive observers watch from the shore. while Dawn After the Wreck (The Baying Hound) balances a warm. soft glow of sunrise with the tragic imagery of the title.
Whatever y0ur thoughts on the relatively classical values of Turner's work, then. this show demonstrates they're still teeming with beauty. character and mystery. A fine end to a springtime walk in Pollok Country Park. (David Pollock)
Art inthe frame
SORCHA DALLAS
It's almost six years since Sorcha Dallas and Marianne Greated launched Switchspace. an original, artist-run initiative showcasing and supporting the work of up-and- coming artists in constantly changing locations. Dallas and Greated have been an inspiration to many. This is clearly evident in the number of similar organisations that have sprung up recently. But like all good things. Switchspace must come to an end. Cathy Wilkes. who Sorcha Dallas credits as the impetus behind setting up the project in the first place. will be the final artist in the programme.
The good news is that Dallas is now ploughing her energies into a new commercial venture. Her new gallery. called simply Sorcha Dallas opens on Saturday 3 April. Located near the hub of galleries on King Street and the Briggait. the newly transformed shop unit will complement the already established Modern Institute in terms of providing a space to see and buy cutting edge contemporary art.
'Switchspace allowed me to work with so many artists,‘ explains Sorcha Dallas. ‘But I think that over the last year of so I've wanted to focus and concentrate on a core group of artists. deveIOping projects. exhibitions and opportunities for them.‘
The inaugural show opens with new large-scale photorealist works and sculpture by Alex Frost and the rest of the year's programme has also been secured with five-week exhibitions by the artists she represents including Henry Coombes. Kate Davis. Craig Mulholland and Clare Stephenson.
'It‘s quite a big step and I'm under no illusions that it's not going to be anything but hard work for the first two years.‘ she says. ‘There's going to be a lot of money going into it and not a lot of money coming back out but it's something, it's everything I've ever wanted to do.’
If previous projects are anything to go by. y0u can be sure that Dallas will succeed. (Helen Monaghan)
I Alex Frost opens the new commercial gallery Sorcha Dallas on Sat 3 Apr. For more information see www. sorchada/las. com