Visual Art
Mum-story view
by Iseult Timmermans MULTI-STORY Street Level, Glasgow, until Sun 5 Mar .0000 Occasionally, viewing a great exhibition can be a saddening experience. Multi-story is such an event and although its subject matter is often difficult, the reason lies way beyond that. Essentially, this exhibition of photographs by immigrants and professionals maps the experiences of Glasgow's new immigrant classes.
Although the high-rise YMCA in Springburn is the gloomy location for this project it is also a brilliantly simple structuring device for the exhibition and the superb accompanying website. Furthermore, it provides a suitably ambiguous metaphor for the way in which incomers to Scotland are drawn to each other by adversity. Photographers Basharat Khan and Iseult Timmermans deserve huge praise for the modest aesthetics they have employed to simultaneously remain honest to their subjects’ many voices and organise those experiences in a readily digestible fashion.
Aysha lqbal’s icy details of the adjacent Tennent’s Brewery sit opposite Timmermans’ warm portraits. There is freedom, and fear, to be found in flight, this juxtaposition tells us. The astonishing series of portraits also by Timmermans - including a fearful boy from Turkey and a smiling mother and child from Mongolia - are hung opposite Timmermans’ series of pictures of blurred figures in identical rooms. This project shows immigration as a fascinating individual story and a global experience, challenging right wing and left wing orthodoxies with the simple and frequently beautiful truth. So why so sad? Well, the disheartening thing about this exhibition is the realisation that its innovative narrative devices, the zeal with which a story on our doorstep is told and the humanity that pervades the work, are largely absent from the output of commercial news organisations in this country. (Tim Abrahams)
l’AlN l W .
ALAN SHIPWAY The lngleby Gallery, Edinburgh, until 13 March 000
MIXED SHOV.’ MICHAEL FULLERTON - SUCK ON SCIENCE CCA, Glasgow, until Sun 13 Mar 0000
In order not to offend the delicate sensibilities of t)‘;(:ti’lr> apaii‘. iiar fluf‘ tr" school graduates and fOrmer tutors. many (ll’tl‘5ti; hare atterr‘ptwi‘ ti, 2 " - borders of their practice to incorporate neighbouring rlisrnrirrier. Tt‘n'. i- 1. understanding of interdiSCiplinarity parallels; a popular rtrr>:.t; "JV/‘3. l"‘:'l’..ir7' ., badly grasped sense of context becorries a Drll'iétl‘, r;r,rii':t?"‘r. arr 1 ’ilitt:l". v. w. r -- 1 With labOLired subject matter. Projects consisting of trun :ateri ‘;t£ttt:l"‘-ll’.‘i. 'il” °' confident and unified solo shows. are installed. It l‘; not. therefore, r l t traces of this trend in Suck 0n SCIOHCG. Michael Fullerton"; recent ‘.ll’..‘. .r’. " -':
Beyond this trite observation. Fullerton has punctuate: the space ; l' ‘ paintings. solid sculptures. a mildly attractive filrrt and sent; Hana". r: exploring the labyrinthine relationship between knowledge. sciriri. . :ii‘ i representation. In the painting ‘Lee Forester. 2004. tones disperse yr. localised areas of pure colour; fight and shade tickles and l,"..r.r::. 't‘r: r a " - canvas. The Scottish portrait tradition of Sir Henry Raetimn lr'..",h‘,"} ' 'i’.’ ' ‘4»- 2004. for example. where a centralised. heroic figure star'is ir' a i. 'i r, . f " 'l grOund. emerging from a darker fore and background
FullertOn empties his canvases of extraneous decoration mtf ' w, 'i ii: : experience of the figure stand for the reality of the sut.;eat ua‘. ‘2' W; :,;r' " ; This approach is infused With the empirical lessons of the Scattisi‘. E): r;' '2'," " i ' ‘
[)ispiaiaiiti abstract art iii stages ()t lien'elepinent is a rare yet riiiiiriiisli, lllttfltfi§tliltj may to present Scottish artist Alan t3liiii'.'.a\ '3; latest works. li‘aieli, do m,- gi:t an tijijitiittillit‘r t0 set? the initial stages and sketches of t‘iinteniperan, abstract artists. trairietl alongside the finished '.‘.(llk. Yet in the entrance, lc the lngleby (‘iallen hang the preparatorx '.'.erks on paper fer the shows larger
perks. lliese sniali.
I'l‘ltl<‘\li¥t?<t ltlwiitf‘» MU adapted to Create contempOrary theOries or knowledge If“ pr": ‘."a’ new it interesting in themselms seductively reactionary as they are sweetly revolutionar, Alexar‘rier Kerr e1. hut sene better as a brief introduction to the large-scale canvases in the ,
neighbouring men‘s. and it is the latter works that are the most engaging. "'4" “v;
Sirriilar in main v.a\s te contemporan abstract artist John McLean. Shipway's i.-.ork highlights the relationships of colour and form; the manner in which sxaathes er ‘.‘.l‘.lt0 mash refuse to recede into the peachy backgrOund of each carnas. anti has. shades of dark blue can rub. scrape. exen Vibrate. against unetlgies at breun.
But Shipan 's pieces den't possess the same references to muSicality as McLean anti rr‘arix other abstract artists. Instead. there is a kind of stillness or static emptiness reflected in the sparse domesticin of the gallery Surroundings. His seething. tiesht — almost milky — pinks gi\ e the impression more of human skin than a painters fabric cantas. and shall daubs of bright colOur create a reilet‘tiw. abstracted image of an artists palette.
Altheugn there is perhaps an inherent tension ‘.‘.’ltll Shipway's accessrbility. his abstract work doesn‘t so lt‘tK‘lt ask for your time as demand it. His lllttlltl‘.'€ style stresses the i'r‘pertanee and richness to be found in the \iewer's lingering or.iser\.atieri. not a brasn irrirriediacy of bold shapes and Vibrant. exCitable colours. B..t unetner his audience OBCltie to play Shipway '5 game. to engage wrth this kind of prolonget’l meditation on colOur. term and abstraction. is perhaps installation shot more difficult to (ieter'rriirie. tlsla Leaxer-Yapl
104 THE LIST F’eh .1 Mar 333:3