Visual Art
Reviews
FILM. SCULPTURE AND PRINTS
LA FEMME DE NULLE PART
- GROUP SHOW
Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Apr ooo
In the past, any woman who wandered from the respectable path, or whose intelligence dared question the male forces that be, was usually then classified as an unholy hysteric, and was either excommunicated or ‘treated’ accordingly. Walking into the show at Doggerfisher, you meet with Anita di Bianco’s film, ‘Disaffection and Disaffectation’, based on Jean Genet’s The Maids, which portrays the devious skulduggery of ‘fin de siecle’ women. With two actors (one being the show’s curator Lucy Skaer) playing three parts, things get a little schizophrenic. Flattened delivery of lines and overwrought glances make it an uneasy piece to watch.
As you come into the light of the main gallery space, Sophie MacPherson’s work creates a different theatrical atmosphere. Seemingly abandoned props surround what could be a magician’s rotating stage. At the front, ‘Interlocking Coins’ consists of two spinning discs covered in the copper coins pulled from behind the ears of children suspended in young, na'i've disbelief. A series of four works entitled ‘Hand Silhouette (I & II), and Animal Silhouette (I & ll)’, also point to this playful appropriation of illusion - although being black on black, the game becomes a little more macabre. What MacPherson does well through these works, along with the emptiness of her ‘set,’ is to sinisterly point to magic laid bare as what it really is - pure trickery.
At first the upturned black and white images of vaulted abbeys by Rosalind Nashashibi (taking part in this year’s Venice Biennale along with Lucy Skaer) seem a little incongruous, although enchanting - as flipped architecture transforms into a toothy Romanesque smile. However, through Anita di Bianco’s second video piece, ‘Studies for J’ - uneasy passages concerning the trial of Joan of Arc are read against the prettin diffused light of a Manhattan apartment - a gentle, historical connection is made. The links throughout the show are effective, though at times a little wrapped up in literary references. (Claire Mitchell)
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PAINTING DRAWING SCULPTURE TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK: THE WAYWARD THINKER Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 8 Apr 000
Trenton Doyle Hancock is a stOryteller and mythmaker — a highbrow comic book artist struggling with a complex psyche and an unruly inner child. His conviction is admirable. developing a narrative based on characters that have remained his focus since the beginning of his career. To refer to him as an illustrator is unavoidable. but is he any more than this? This exhibition defiantly ventures forth into a comic book of outsized proportions and is appealing for its simple, vulnerable qualities.
Both galleries present a selection of Hancock’s drawings and paintings: up-to- date. colourful. derivations — a poppy mix of Salvador Dali and Hans Bellmer. ‘Miracle Machine #9 or The Furnace That Burned Together Goodness', hangs altar- like at one end of the lower gallery. Part drawing, painting and collage. this piece. along with similar works. are at sea on the scrawled narration painted on the gallery walls. Upstairs. ‘Give ‘em an Inch and They'll Take a Foot‘, is one of his most grotesque works — a phallus-cum-hand excreting fluid. Hinting at psychosexual tensions. Hancock reveals a darker, more serious side to his practice.
Curiously, upstairs. a lone sculpture punctuates the flow of the other works. A single arm holding a bucket of Pepto Bismol extends into limbo. literally. However. Hancock's other works provide an enthralling. easily accessible continuity that extends throughout the gallery. and not surprisingly into the pages of his accompanying books. (Steven Cairns)
88 THE LIST 15—29 Mar 2007
CERAMICS. PAINTING AND PRINTS SIMON CARROLL Collins Gallery, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Mar 000
The alchemy and leap of imagination that’s involved when throwing. decorating and firing a humble pot is not to be underestimated. Each glaze — whether ice- cream pink or emerald green — begins life as inert grey swill. exhibiting few clues of the potential garish hues that will blossom in the process of firing. The bodies of Simon Carroll's chucked. poked. scratched, gouged and ripped pots bear the deep marks of their aggressive making like war wounds.
This exhibition of enormous vases, jugs. and dainty tea bowls is accompanied by large paintings and collaged prints on paper and card. smothered in the colours and motifs that also find their way onto Carroll's pots. The ceramic work has previously been shown at the Tate St Ives. among other places, weaving its way nonhward to the Collins Gallery. Carroll’s paintings — bearing the grandiose title ‘One Must Have Chaos: in order to create a constellation of dancing stars‘ — contain windows. fern tendrils. boats, and what appears to be yellow knickers that are covered in layers of abstract spirals and wheels. These pop-abstract works appear to be throw-away fun. but they deserve as much if not more attention than the pots. It is not absolutely certain that Carroll's slipshod aesthetic would transfer to canvas, but his compositional skills and obvious enjoyment of the stuff of paint would surely translate. (Alexander Kennedy
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