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FILM INSTALLATION
DALZIEL + SCULLION
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, until Sun 25 Feb 2007 O.
The new exhibition The Earth Turned to Bring Us Closer by Dalziel + Scullion at Kelvingrove continues their use of a minimal, ‘hands off’ approach to whichever medium they employ. This attitude is one of the most successful aspects of their work. That aside, it is difficult to understand their success.
Their new HDV (high definition video) piece is, well, thin. It’s hard to find a more fitting term - ‘superficial’ is too extreme. The piece also manages to seem nostalgic, even though it was filmed very recently. This ‘good old days’ atmosphere sees grey days through rose-coloured specs, relying on oppressive social structures rather than questioning or tearing them down. The music that accompanies the piece by Craig Armstrong, Memory Takes My Hand, indulges in the same sloppy effect - the titles of the movements give you a flavour of what to expect: ‘One Day’, ‘Risen’, ‘Glasgow’ and ‘As We Loved’. Armstrong celebrates sentimentality - minor keys and a phony sense of
worried urgency dominate.
The catacomb-like space the exhibition takes place in contributes further to the funereal, overly emotive atmosphere. Panning images that fade to black of ‘folk like you and me’ in Glaswegian settings are projected at three screens, but these are portraits only by formal coincidence; they are about the artists and their project, not about the subjects. Everyday Weegies have re-claimed Kelvingrove, it seems. It’s an easy, schmaltzy solution to that most difficult of problems: ‘ls high art for the people; do the places that house it belong to us?’ Ideas of accessibility should not be confused with being patronised.
Dalziel + Scullion’s work is almost always epic in scope, budget and intention, tackling large issues in a big way. It attempts to cover so many of the important political issues that it is difficult for one to get a glimpse of an underlying aesthetic sensibility. This is proposal art - the bastard offshoot of installation and environmental art. It satisfies the cultural civic administrators, the Philistines with their hands on the purse strings. Either one or both of the artists must be very good at filling in forms. (Alexander Kennedy)
.- lug-III“- . j. . , PAINTING f" -‘ ‘ ~ SUE SPARK - CONFECTION * o c ’ i— }: The Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu Nov 16 00000 x. v I} i A carved frieze high on the exterior of the Corn Exchange building shows
the stages between planting and harvesting grain and its eventual route to
market. The exuberant quasi—Baroque narrative is populated by putti-
esque figures —‘ small, plump children often found in Rococo paintings with a religious theme. Sue Spark's paintings — by well-placed happenstance — also use the same kind of figurative device. often in the form of a subtle ‘under-drawing'. and these delicate lines therefore act as the starting point for her delicate yet complex paintings.
Spark's works are really declarations of their own composition and conception: they lead the viewer gently but firmly through the various layers and stages of their making. Spark is a superb draughtsman and her figure- drawing — which is firmly at the root of her work — allows her to develop and extend her artistic and painterly vocabulary in a number of important
directions.
In the large oil. Unfit/ed (Pink/Brown) two angelic figures embrace and
wave — they have been painted using a white line on a denser. coloured
ground. But underneath these lines are other blocks of colour, while. on top. a variety of shapes. forms and motifs (flowers. ‘palette’ marks and stencilled spots) show that these elements were painted at a later stage. Solely painting the human form may be seen as artistic stasis. But here
Lavender
Spark uses the history of figure painting as an essential component in the
evolution of her own sophisticated painterly language. (Giles Sutherland)
INTERVIEW
NICK é
Visual Art
z: VANS Glasgow-based sculptor Nick Evans was the fourth artist to be awarded Tate St Ives artist in residence. Steven Cairns caught up with him before the opening of his four-month solo show to talk about his work, its developments and working in St Ives.
Steven Cairns How do you find the difference between Glasgow and St Ives?
Nick Evans Well it's pretty different. I‘ve had Quite a bit of time to think and to work without any distractions. Down here its pretty isolated but it‘s very beautiful.
80 Do you think the residency has made a difference to your work?
NE Yeah. the sheer quantity of work I ended up making III a short period of time was due to the residency; I've ended up making seven pretty big sculptures in seven months.
SC And all the works in the show were made during the residency? NE Yes. I've got two large resin sculptures that are on show in the gallery space. along with two painted aluminium sculptures and two paintings on card. I've also got a showcase with nine small ceramic pieces and three large outdoor sculptures on the roof terrace.
80 Do you think that your work has become more ambitious because of the residency?
NE Definitely, The tree outdoor works are developments of two untitled works I showed last November. and the two resin pieces are developments from previous works as well. The aluminium works are a new departure. something I want to develop for my show at Mary Mary in February.
19 Oct—2 Nov THE LIST