Visual Art
A Thin Line
by Carlos Cortes
WROUGHT, RAISED N’ FORGED
The Embassy, Edinburgh, until Sun 5 March .0.
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BODY PARTS ll
llle othm r,-,rorl<f; separate. lax/erref; RoyaI Scottish Academy. Edinburgh. Fri 17 Femsun 19 experiences of violent crime in Johannesburg. This wrrleo preeer: are professrorral and well Feb. SHOW ENDED ... subtle, SIOW masochism was reflected In many of the rrllrrr'lrrrrl where Murray's; parrrt'rtgs; and performances throughout the festival, and emphasised rerarnrr arr- (rude. rrr'erxererrt and With its risk and wrongdoing, performance art is rarely the irreproducibility of feeling that live art creates. Yet :rrrtrrnrnnlv antr aesthetrr; rtlarnes; (ilegnl about rehearsal, and the weekend festival devoted to this not all were transient affairs - the finale performance by art form demonstrated such problems beautifully. From Carlos Cortes has left its fingerprints on the basement Angela Bartram sucking a sugar cast of her own tongue walls of the RSA. Recruiting the audience as fellow stuck on a wall, to Amanda Couch eating her Victorian artists, Cortes‘ playful creation of communal graffiti tea-set, conspicuous consumption is the kind of witty harnessed the same sense of exuberance and inclusion grotesquerie that the Body Parts festival delights in. But that Found Collective‘s paper plane bombardment anticipating Bartram would unintentionally cut her mouth created for the festival‘s opening night. on the prosthetic bon bon during her teen-snogging Admittedly still an adolescent festival in its second frenzy, leaving smears of blood around the gallery wall, year, the joint RSA and SSA effort is an encouraging and Couch would accidentally break her crockery half- push to create a new space for performance art in the way through the performance is what makes this bravura capital. Boldly opening just one week after Glasgow‘s show-and-tell so captivating. much-acclaimed National Review of Live Arts at Thankfully only resorting to video-works once, almost Tramway, Body Parts has understood something quite all the acts shunned sensationalism. The artists showed significant about the nature of performance as public little artifice, and compulsive viewing of South African art: it competes with the NRLA‘s international status. but artist Zhané Warren’s performance - eating over 270 as a free festival. Opening unticketed to an unlimited slips of paper with her fears written on each and read audience, its approach echoes performance art's aloud — made one of the festival’s most powerful and inherent principles of freedom: Body Parts is not for brave acts. Delicate and languorous, Warren’s parching sale. (lsla Leaver-Yap)
l ll M AND INSl'Al lAllON LUKE FOWLER The Modern Institute. Glasgow. until Sat 18 Mar .0000
For the r'evrewer', and vrewer. tuke Fowler rs a slrpperv frsh Thrs; set of new work asks; duestrons. and leads us up hlrnd alleys. ultrmately poSrtronrng Fowler as both artrst and some rndetrnahle ttomlrrnatron of arr‘hrvrst. documentary frimmaker, (turator' and (tommrssmnrng edrtor'.
At the heart of the show rs a trim Pr/grrrrrage From Sriattereo’ Pornts. about (torrrooser Cornelrus Car'dew and the Scratch Orr‘hestra. wlllt‘ll he err-founded. In seven seetrons, the piece traces the orchestra‘s hrston. from rts rnrteptron rn 1960 through tr: rts; drsorder'ed end. drrxen hy a polrtrt‘al droslon between "Maorst' and 'lmtlrgt‘flrs' member's. Altlllt; the way. the orchestra's esoterrr‘, technrdues are drseussed. and demonstrated So. Pugh/wage. rs a functrorral (lOCLllllOlllat\‘ essay. hut rt rs; also a t’lurd frlmrt‘ portrart of Cardew and hrs peers. As rr‘r hrs east ‘r'rr‘ eh RD Larr‘u and \entos Jones Fen-.ler uses nex‘. and arc?” \e footage and r'ettordrngs, and gathered epherrwa These are hundrect together loosely. under'mrnrr‘rg the lrnear narratrr. e around Wlllt‘lt the trlnr (‘oheres — rt rs rarely clear who rs speakrng On the so:rndtra<:l\. or r.-.rhether those verces belong to the faces we see. Drrzyrng edrtrng and anrrnated sectrons further a sense of CrOth'O uncertarnty. hardly the hallmark of the d()Clrrrter‘tan,.
Add a seleCtrOn of reprrnts of Alec Hrll's photographs. also attrrbuted to Fowler. and trlms by Alasdarr erlrs and LuCrlle Desamor‘y. both rncorporated rnto Pr/grrmage . . and One begins to suspect that Fowler rs mrrrorrng hrs subjects l.'.'orklrtg (:ol'ahoratrvel, to the rhythms of an unseen. unrmagrnable seere. rtlaek Mottrarnr
‘.‘ :r V THE LIST 95