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DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURE
BEAGLES 8. RAMSAY - UNREALISED DREAMS
Glasgow School of Art, until Fri 14 Jan 000
Beagles & Ramsay are funny men - both funny ha-ha, that is, and funny peculiar. Their latest wheeze is Unrealised Dreams, an installation of drawings and sculpture, full of plots and schemes for future projects. The drawings are real forgeries, so to speak, in scratchy ink on aged paper, aping the style of Da Vinci’s notebooks. Like Da Vinci, the duo have come up with some incredible plans. Unlike Da Vinci, theirs are scatological, grimy, and oozing with dark humour. In one, the pair plan to populate Pluto with a race cloned from the Krankies, in another they make notes for robotic catsuits, available in the form of Ian Curtis or Iggy Pop, according to preference.
As usual, much of the show is about Beagles & Ramsay themselves, with self-portraits as Iumpen couch potatoes, or in the form of black puddings, with each artist providing a pint of their own blood
MIXED SHOW
OUT OF PLACE: WORKS FROM THE PIER ART CENTRE COLLECTION, ORKNEY
The Dean Gallery until Sun 26 Jun .0
Orkney: perhaps not best known for its abstract art and modern art centres. Yet the Pier Art Centre there houses works by 20th century masters and members of the St Ives group of Barbara Hepw0rth. Ben Nicholson. Alfred Wallis and Naum Gabo. Donated by Margaret Gardiner in 1979. who was once a close friend of many of the artists. the works have been generously loaned Out for tour while the Centre completes its refurbishment.
These 30 Or so SCqutures and paintings on display have strong histoncal Significance: Gardiner's purchases helped some of the artists thrOLigh finanCial difficulties while the likes of Hepworth were still young. This maybe explains why these werks appear more as a collection of curiosmes that map out the artists' early development and show their talent as something still slightly naiye. rather than a careful amalgam of key works. Together. they reflect a priyate pursuit and personal taste rather than an O\’€F‘.’|€\‘.’ of a movement. Gardiner admits that she did not intentionally gather the collection for public display and shared tastes.
(an unrealised dream realised, as it happens. They fried their blood puddings at a recent show at New York’s PS1 MOMA). The sculptural works are packing crates, ready for transportation to a made-up German gallery. One contains mirrors, one is full of blood, a third, disturbingly, seems to have someone stuck inside, plaintively knocking.
It’s not often that one laughs aloud in a gallery, but Beagles & Ramsay manage to provoke a good deal of sniggering, and a few belly laughs. The butts of the jokes are either the artists themselves or the artworld they find themselves working in. The best self-portrait sees Beagles as a haughty giraffe, branded a ‘puritan sympathiser’, with Ramsay at his side, in the form of a little piggy, dubbed a ‘hedonist dilettante’. The show, as a whole, takes a pop at everything from notions of authenticity to the scene’s perpetual lust for the young and the new. Beagles 8. Ramsay’s success is in picking off the scab of a standard gallery response, revealing the goo bubbling beneath. (Jack Mottram)
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mols in ’ ‘ and' “ by Alan Davie
“fun”;
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U y . 1. o nmxuti O . ’5 ' '. I}! r V .0 'a‘g‘t;.' a v A. A b . " and this lack of a broader appeal is difficult to ignore. Shame. too. that the tucked-array upper galleries of the Deai‘. seem like teriiporrar, storage spaces for this tra/eil'rg exhibitiOn. tic With the Scottish Gallery of Moder" Art hOusirTg a much wider ar‘d understar‘idably higher qualit, number of zacrks b, the very same artists JLiSi ever the read. the Pier collect'on car‘ hardly compete in a setting or“ s
a little lltlSleadl“g and. eat of place. isa Leaner-rapt
Visual Art
Name: Luke Fowler Born: ltli'8. Glasgow. Scotland Education: Duncan of Joi'danstone. Dundee Represented by: The Modern institute. (T‘HSQOVV
What about him? He's iust been nominated fer the Beck's Futures 2005 Award.
How much does he get? It's not all abdiit money. is it. but if you must know. that's worth £05) 000 in total ihe bags a cool 5‘21) 000 and the runners‘ up get a generous tip).
And the art? l'owler makes films. But he could also be described as an artist/iiiusician.”multi-media art and music collective-runner. 'What you see is where you're at“ (2001 l. eXpIOres Scottish psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and 60's zeitgeist writer RD Laing who pioneered new methods for treating people under-90mg severe mental distress or breakdown. "The Way Out' (2003) is a study of the underground muSic figure Xentos Jones.
The man? He runs Shadazz. a multi media platform for collaborative artworks in Glasgow. And is generally thought of as a lovely guy.
What is it about Beck’s and Glasgow? Not sure but it goes way back. Since it was launched in 2000. the prize has gone to a Glasgow-based artist three times. Roderick Buchanan took it in 2000, in 2002 Toby Paterson brOught it home and in 2003 Rosalind Nashashibi carried on the mantle.
Any chance of a fourth shot? Oeuld be tricky. Lali Chetwynd's paintings and performance works have featured appearances by Jabba the Hutt and a Meatloaf- inspired cast of bats; Ryan Gander does everything from installations to illustrated lectures and novels. including ‘The Death of Abbe Faria'; Christina Mackie has had a set of Styrofoam Cups serially crushed by increasmg levels of air pressure: Daria Martin uses ‘lo-tech magic' and Donald Urquhart does ink drawings, featuring Judy Garland. George Best and Elizabeth Taylor.
We say: Go Fowler.
5—2,, )51' 1/3,): THE L'ST 91