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REVIEWL‘.. '
Lone Pine JOANNA KANE: THE SOMNAMBULISTS National Portrait Gallery. Edinburgh. until Sun 6 Apr 0000
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REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY 'Vlill“£ll"‘i" of (ir"’il.;i‘ i .i‘ 1‘ r .' ANSEL ADAMS: photographer than his subject. There are detail images :;r;.'*’.(:xt trim. .9 ’ CELEBRATION OF GENIUS of grasses and bubbling water too, so atypical of the at Kane's, ,rw ~: l r - ° City Art Centre. Edinburgh. until Sat 19 Apr 00.. common perception that Adams’ work was all grand low. I’llii 'i»: .i« x ziir . '~ 2 ' *—-‘ flu“ V7 7” O l '7 7 ' expanses. He photographed churches in New Mexico, reveals; zi iiiiirli liirziwi lrl' ' The natural ecological bent with which Ansel Adams’ weather-beaten picket fences and rusted steel ;>ii<>fr>g;r.iphu, .irwi " ll‘, i: i ' ' ' : work is infused means that a show like this could never anchors, yet these add flavour to his repertoire rather that mi m r? :iw «4- .ll‘: v r t be more timely, and many might read a somewhat than define it. The prints which do so, however, are all Despite this. Kit'i‘.‘ a fir .° . sombre note in his otherwise celebratory landscapes. included. iélfS’N‘IlTElV) {nail of i 'lll‘lii' ;' t. 3 There are no people in them, and an impression of Crisp, snow-frosted shots of Yosemite Valley remain slimming; fil!‘.’(,‘.", light n' w loneliness is evoked amidst their epic scale. definitive of their medium, and the iconic ‘The Face of from our inst ‘K' ‘.’_:"..1 i" "[17 v
That said, as this is the first Scottish retrospective Half Dome’ and ‘Winter Storm’ are stunning when seen and largest ever in the UK of work by the late mounted and hung. ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Californian photography pioneer, there are people in Mexico’ is perhaps Adams‘ definitive work, containing these works. Friends and characters Adams stumbled all of the elements he photographed regularly: dusty across are segregated into a small corner of plains, far-off mountain ranges, a crisp moon high in portraiture, but none are photographed with quite the the sky, and the graves of men almost lost in the same attention to detail with which Adams tells the foreground, a very small part of nature. story of the valleys and hills of Yosemite, the Next to these, the work of Scots landscape Californian Sierra Nevada mountains and the flow of photographer Lindsay Robertson seems an anomaly. the Pacific ocean at Point Sur. Taken at Glencoe and on the same American plains
Only one portrait rings utterly true: a print of the where Adams worked, they pay skilled homage to photographer Edward Weston (a fellow devotee of Robertson’s forebear. Yet, the sheer size of some of ‘straight photography’) which forms part of Adams’ these sets up an unlikely competition with arguably the ‘Group f/64’, sitting amidst the root-mass of a large work of the greatest landscape photographer who ever tree. The setting almost tells us more about the lived. (David Pollock)
REVIEWVIDEO AND NSTALLAT'CN THEM: ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 22 Mar 0000
Polish filmmaker Artur lellleHSKl has establisl‘ie’.‘ air fife" :i‘ ":l, .‘n’ this film. ‘Theni', was originall,‘ Shaw." at Dociir'ie' ta ‘2. 7r r,- ‘T'r a :: GOCumentar‘y ‘sooal exper'nient' b, Zinger/ski .‘i’lll',.' V/gk-f’ er " n" ' from conflicting SOCial grouos in Poland including ieft WIN; (1/, a. “tr,- natiOnalist Pelish y0uth and devout Catho'irs a3? 9f .w'vxr r r; 'r;‘r:", :22. "v.4: oeooie. absolute“, real — but merr-oers ot' a" wane rr :1 ’,
ZWJewsw refers to 'Therr' a ‘r'iCne anon? t 9'; ’2‘:‘."‘:’,', w.- r;::' ' grouo 's init=aii, askeo to make a great barrier vs." 0‘. r r; z: w; :z' er,- " w cause. But then the teams are gathered together " a' e'rx“ r, arm! r5; warehouse soace and asked to ‘a'rend' the expected. a graoua- breakdown occurs. are fire ‘irr see" 3 f9 " , he‘d": physica' ‘ignt enSue.
'Them' draws attention to the :mcorfant role a' r'..age :1' r: z :, Ii, ' Creat'r‘g cause: ailegiances. €86" grout. .ses '1 e’.‘ . savings as a means of asserting opinion or expression. tine La' "ere :z‘ "' {:2 almost resembling exoressiOnist paintings. But the ’jC:STi".;CT 2r,- inmr 3‘ " ear.- symbols also effectiver highlights the reactiOnary FBSDOCS‘f; We". T' e opt/xx '3 groups. and the film is a fierce reminder of the force of 'JlSLl'dl ‘argiage r l/fi‘f‘fi"; debate. (Rosie Lessoi
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96 TH! LIST 28 Feb—13 Mar 2008