ART, AS A FLAT-PACKED ROOM, HAS BEEN EXPERTLY REALISED
oodbye Ms Mcanie
With every other artist rushing to Glasgow, Alexander Kennedy looks at the work of Lucy McKenzie who got out quick but cannot forget the city.
1 surely wont be long until Scotland sees a major retrospective of Lucy McKenzie‘s career so far.
The work chosen for her exhibition. '12": Years of
Robotic May/2cm (um! sub/('1) acts as an excellent selection of recent work from an oeuvre that continues to develop in wit and confidence. McKenzie's recent move to Belgium could have something to do with the emphasis this show places on Glasgow as a series of faded and fragmented memories. but the city has always played a pivotal role as subject matter in her paintings and drawings. That said. in the gallery upstairs at the Talbot Rice. her association with lidinburgh comes to the fore. with drawings of 'well—kent faces‘ previously reproduced in The (My ()'('lm'k (inn reduced to sinuous inky lines and darkly humorous jutting profiles.
In the main gallery downstairs. McKen/ie has mocked tip a small Mackintosh—esque room (designs by his contemporaries have also been used). This installation draws together three main themes: the continual fascination with Mackintosh as our only lin de siecle avant-gardist: the artistic relationship (and. sometimes. the lack of one) between Scotland and the rest of liurope: and the culminating sense that when these issues are bridged the relationship created is not too solid.
This is by far the most successful piece in the show. acting both as a protective play den and stage set. but with the corners missing. so that we can be watched from the outside. The deconstructed cuboid structure is placed perfectly yet awkwardly in the lower
gallery space. giving the impression that the four enormous canvases that form it have been dragged off the gallery walls or have magically pulled themselves together. Art as an idea. a plan. as a flat- packed room has been expertly realised by letting the work follow its own truth content. Beside this ‘sculpture‘ are two Mackintosh ladder-back chairs.
pushed right up against the gallery walls. They have
now become copies of earlier copies. their placement mimicking how they would be displayed within a museum as ‘originals'. and now. at the opposite extreme. they have become lowly bits of usually invisible gallery furniture for punters to park their arses in.
This theme of displaying that which usually aids the exhibition is continued in the felt screen beside the mocked—up room. which is covered with a screed of ‘hit and miss' drawings. Some of these are about as successful as 6th form Higher Art sketches. but this is apparently the aesthetic they hope to invoke. The drawings are pined to the board like evidence of a school project on ‘Glasgow's Architecture'. with
pencil. pen and wash drawings. some loose and I jagged. others as tight as architectural plans. In one f
successful watercolour. Mackintosh-like abstract forms grow up and over the walls. dripping down the
facade like upside-down tears. Glasgow misses Ms j
McKenzie as much as she obviously misses us.
Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem (and sublet), Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, until Sat 9 Dec too...
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THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
8 Lucy McKenzie - Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem (and sublet) This exhibition of paintings and drawings by the Scottish emigre presents an insight into the artist's oeuvre. The works on show demonstrate McKenzie's continuing love affair with Glasgow and Edinburgh, with an installation that comprises Mackintosh interiors as well as those of his contemporaries. See opposite. Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, until Sat 9 Dec $ Keith Farquhar - Drunken Maria (14 Units) Edinburgh-based Keith Farquhar manages to fill the space with a tight and humorous installation, which draws on the readymade tradition, adapting and honing elements that had previously appeared in his recent shows at lnvertieth House and the Fruitmarket Gallery. See review page 95. Talbot Rice Gallery Round Room, University of Edinburgh, until Sat 9 Dec. 3 Handmade The advertising posters on show rely on handmade techniques to get their pint across and to send up the multi-nationals and capitalist swine that dominate the market place with their digitally enhanced images and hyper real simulacra. See review, page 94. The Lighthouse Gallery Glasgow, until Tue 21 Nov. 1: Young Athenians A host of artists that have exhibited in or been associated with Edinburgh’s Embassy Gallery over the last five years show their wares at the RSA. Performance artists Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth exhibit a video of a mocked-up toga party, with guitars, roll-ups and bed-sheet togas, with many other Edinburgh artists playing minor roles. See review, page 94. RSA, Edinburgh, until Sun 12 Nov.
2—16 Nov 2006 THE LIST 93