Visual Art
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m \.’ll u SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION CLAIRE BARCLAY: OPENWIDE
The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 12 Apr 0...
You would have to be made of stem critical stuff to leave Openwide without being profoundly impressed by Claire Barclay‘s work. The artist is known for her installations, which often consist of a supporting structure or frame with smaller, individual objects. This is not exactly site-specific work, but site is certainly a considered element. Using a range of familiar materials, including leather, fleece, straw, wood and metal, Barclay creates beautifully balanced and crafted installations that resonate with the viewer, despite (or even because of) their intentionally ambiguous meaning. Much of the charm of Barclay’s work resides in this simultaneously wide and narrow meaning: it is both profoundly personal and closely related to collective consciousness and experience. In this difficult balancing act, Barclay effortlessly succeeds.
In last year’s brilliant exhibition at Washington Garcia, Barclay worked within the context of a hay barn, while she created an installation in a palazzo as part of Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2003.
88 THE LIST 19 Feb—5 Mar 2009
But Openwide is a different type of exhibition, in a completely different type of space. This is a retrospective of sorts, and the first time that the artist’s old and new work has been shown together.
This is an ambitious task. How does one present older works originally designed to be seen as separate, almost site-specific sculptural installations, without having each aspect meld into a giant hybrid ‘super-installation’? In practice this is virtually what has happened and it is hard to see how these works could have been presented in this type of gallery otherwise. The large lower space contains various sculptural elements from past installations, reconfigured to reflect both these separate aspects’ original presentations and their status as a new complete work. The viewer is able to visually differentiate between these constituent parts while also making connections between motifs and possible subjects, although admirers of Barclay’s work may long to see these works installed as they were in situ. Hopefully these visitors will be mollified by the exhibition’s fine publication, which features images of Barclay's installations in their original incarnations. (Liz Shannon)
REVIEW SCULPTURE JONATHAN OWEN Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Mar 0000
REVIEW -E TIMECODE
Dundee Contemporary Arts. until Sun 8 Mar 0000
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At Doggerfisher's 2001 Inaugural show Edrnburgh College of Art graduate Jonathan Owen exhrrnerr‘ a serres of rrreverent yet deeply ornate cut-outs from lads" mags. manuals and books. Merracrngi. spirarrrr; together nuclear armour wrth penrses and car parts. Owen's prrckly teenage craft shocked and rrr;lr;r1tr;rl In equal measure. The blood of the artrst's rmagrned persona has Slnce cooled, and .‘Jhlle the rum Images and suburban concerns re-OCCur here. the soulptural works Currently on show suggest t‘r at Owen's punk has been domestrcated. Sex. terror and Saturday nrghts have been muffled by a sense at longlng. and an unerrrng awareness of death pervades these astonrshrng new neces.
A serres of Intellrgently Installed untrtled works - a hat stand, a wrne rack. and a lamp — rrnrnerrrate,’
conjure th0ughts of the rntenor's mrssmg lnhabrtant. Gradually rt dawns that each turnlshrng sa’lr, l/zll‘f. rts bourgeors purpose. The rack rs obscured by charns. the stand srmllarly flattened. and the central prece — a steely ornate cage-luke structure — remarns door-less and wooden. These aitenng tropes of restrarnt are not suggestrve of a glossy. dark seductron. but more lrkely. some red-faced Curtaln
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Owen's Prufrockran lament rs granted depth and crrtrcal perspectrve by the IncluSrcn of hrs consummately crafted book pages. Evocatrve of the IncreaSlngly strarned relatronshrp between contemporary art practrces and the needs of publrc art commrssrons. a series of cr/rC-mrnded memorrals have been partially erased. enSurrng that the rearrng horses only ever ethereally emerge from the page. Thus rs an astute senes of works whlch lays testament to the assured development of Owen's
practlce. (Rosalle Douball