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SIMON PATTERSON: HIGH NOON
The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 1 May 0000
Simon Patterson is funny. Not wry chuckle funny, but laugh out loud, make a prat out of yourself in a stuffy gallery funny. Given the standard gloss on his work - that it forces us to re-evaluate blindly accepted belief systems by combination and juxtaposition of stock taxonomies — this might come as a surprise. But step into this survey of Patterson’s career, and laugh you will. The earliest work here, ‘Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton’, sets the tone: two stars plucked from a visual medium and rendered, their images boiled down into plain text. And here is ‘The Last Supper Arranged According to the Sweeper Formation (Jesus Christ in Goal)’ - the title alone enough to provoke a fit of the giggles - our saviour as goal-saver. Then, filling the gallery’s upper level, comes ‘General Assembly’, an epic typewriter stadium in which the great and good of the United Nations bump up against place names
Visual Art
mum SOFT LIGHTNING
TOUCH doggerflsher. Edinburgh. until Sat 2 April 0.. u ‘ «.3 I -.\L lifted from Gulliver’s Travels, forging a glorious - .- v' nonsense poetry of Lugnagg, Hammarskjold and :' z- . QUERTYUIOP. New work ‘High Noon’ is funnier still: -.' : :i - matching clicking timepieces with athletes breathing, " - ~ ~ ' Patterson has made the first watchmaker’s stag reel, where clocks swing like porn-star buttocks, and : 1. v'. athletic exertion becomes brutish rutting. Patterson’s " ' love of a good gag is, though, both a strength and a ' 2' ' weakness. It is all too easy to flit from work to work, » - -' ' failing to absorb the careful thinking and rich ' '- ' ' z' ' allusions behind the laughs. Burton and Taylor, for :l : ' ' " ' example, are screen-printed, nodding to Warhol, : . while questioning our relationship with unknowable " icons with a stark ‘objective‘ typeface. ‘General Assembly’, too, is dizzying, a bold swipe at a half- " -- " century of global failure to cooperate, while Jesus on ' ' the pitch resonates with distrust for opposing : r" : , ~ ; - dogmas, damning sectarianism with a simple quip. Be : .: ' ' " a little careful, then, when looking at Patterson’s : . work: some of these jokes are deadly serious. '- ; :' ' (Jack Mottram) " '1 C O " M l( “l x ‘1 :irr~.,.xi or; ‘N , -. . BESPRIZORNIKI - THE NEGLECTED ONES m. DGP Gallery, Glasgow, until Mon 28 Mar 000 N?» Dem: (Killglivlmm Tgi‘wr‘. xv: :' "v; (u 1’ ’ " v' lll‘i .‘.'(‘,ll\ 'w: fluwril f'w- w ’F'w ‘i’w; ,' 1 I {HM}.‘l‘.)‘fl'll'},"“.'."’ ‘IJKW i " ' 7 ': 'iiimgi’yiirtwi'uiziiwxw'r r‘” w :w ' 'r liaaiea lllfl, "r t. .xlx ht ’i'um (v --, :' l")lt(3 .‘."Il‘ .1” ’ll‘l)’~’:‘~‘v." .‘ .51‘ : i' " w " ‘."' 2 .'.’ll()l(:()ll“:l‘i .',r,:.3r1"3‘ri73" 2 " ‘w: ‘.' x'fil, , ' 3mm; (21 a "W‘M'. I'Wx'ww: , , ’i' l; :x' :w' Win/:7 ',.' 'lzzslui' \r‘letw'rw i 'x l) f’i(?‘§€ni‘” i' l‘d' ‘ l ’ " ' ‘ ' <‘_i’.‘.'.i’.“ In: w: " ~ " ‘ " w- H :2- 'rI"“li"l r l '.' . : “at; {mew ~ " w . ,w: :: ~ W .v f(§l'.'i"’1"‘~'3 " WWW: “9" r-fl' '1' 2‘.‘.".' ', . 2' ° I A'i("7"’ll"ll ’3 T'V: eat" If ,' ', :1 an ’:-,-. ‘87“ [1‘ (“1'”) '}".."‘£‘:" 362' :2' l ‘12' . .' ’1 T' ‘ ‘ ‘ T’lll‘i‘nié J” p'illr'” C'izl‘n '2‘78’.’ I 1,, lii’x Vii", rz' '1“ twat “it ’ ’ ' «w:- " :-‘ " z . . .251, l I 2" S:- x 1» z ' r "
' :'. THE LIST 103