Visual Art
REVIEW SCULPTURE SIOBHÁN HAPASKA: THE NOSE THAT LOST ITS DOG Glasgow Sculpture Studios, until Sun 30 Jan ●●●●●
Scottish deer skin stretched over stainless steel, fibre glass and slate powder in resin, and an uprooted olive tree suspended in mid air by various steel components are some of the materials that have been used by Siobhán Hapaska to give life to three monumental sculptures. Created during her Production Residency at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, these new impeccably crafted objects sit quiescently in the GSS gallery space.
‘Downfall’ is a dried out olive tree hovering
horizontally above two trays – one contains its leaves, the other some of the soil that used to cling to its roots. Being an evergreen tree with a robust root system, the unusual death of the plant suggests an unnatural force at work, hinting at historical and contemporary Middle Eastern references. A bit like a creature that has strayed from its creator, the title of the show suggests an instinct that has lost its instigator. But for ‘The Dog That Lost Its Nose’, the
concept is switched. Eleven stainless steel globes, ringed with a strip of animal skin, each rotate upon its own axis. Juxtaposing the inorganic with an organic object, we see our own reflection multiplied in different sizes as the steel balls hang from biggest to smallest. The final sculpture, ‘Tick’, is reminiscent of a huge
lifeless animal, a machine engineered for no purpose, a futuristic aesthetic beast revealing itself to be part skeleton, part tendons and part shaven skin, a monstrous blood sucking creature kept alive by a clinical respiratory system. The sculpture has animal nipples dangling from its big fertile belly, yet these are frozen in taxidermic juxtaposition with cold steel. This beautiful immortal being recalls the modern day appeal of the vampire: unnerving us as much as they seduce us with their exquisite elegance.
Hapaska works with invertions: she takes systems that we often trustingly take for granted and dissects them, suspends them in time, so that we may walk around them, permitting their fleshiness to captivate us, but never allowing us to touch. (Talitha Kotzé)
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REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY COLIN GRAY: IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH Street Level Gallery, Glasgow, until Sun 23 Jan ●●●●●
The Parents is a photographic series featuring Colin Gray’s folks. It officially began in 1980, but Glasgow-based Gray started taking pictures of his mum and dad when he was a five-year-old boy. His obsession with documenting family occasions developed into an extensive body of work using his parents as his subjects who acted out characters in staged dramas. One of his most iconic works, ‘Hull
Under Water’, depicts his parents enacting being under water in their living room in Hull, with plastic cling film representing the surface of the water. Their brilliant sense of humour segues into something more poignant in the last stages of The Parents. In Sickness and in Health is the final chapter in this series, and documents his mother’s illness, his father’s role as her carer and her death in 2004, capturing her final portrait – at peace in a coffin. The collection fills two rooms in the
gallery. The documentation dealing with illness and death is interspersed with playful images of the mundane, transforming these into beautifully textured and detailed interpretations. Upon starting a new generation of images in which Gray now uses his own children as subjects, he reflects on The Parents: ‘Looking at myself in the mirror I see a reflection of my father’s face. I see the history in my own future. This is a curious and rather frightening experience.’ It is simultaneously a personal investigation for the artist and a profoundly disparate experience for the viewer. (Talitha Kotzé)
REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY THE HEART OF THE GREAT ALONE: SCOTT, SHACKLETON AND ANTARCTIC PHOTOGRAPHY The Queen’s Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 11 Apr ●●●●●
Bringing together photography from both Scott’s South Pole expedition (1910–1913) and Shackleton’s later attempt to cross Antarctica on foot (1914–16), The Heart of the Great Alone is more than a collection of images – it is a narrative journey and an education to boot.
Herbert Ponting was not among the men who set out on the final push with Scott to the Pole, but his record of the months leading up to that departure, and his eye for capturing a scene, have produced some emotive and beautifully composed plates. Part of the appeal of these images, versus contemporary shots of the frozen continent, comes from the air of history and danger combined with the grain of the camera technique. The large photographs are accompanied by comprehensive text, which informs without becoming overbearing. In contrast, Frank Hurley manages to deliver more than just a magnificent scene. Some of the most powerful shots of the exhibition depict the marooned ship Endurance and her fate as she is crushed by the oncoming winter. The smaller stature of Hurley’s prints does not lose out to Ponting’s larger pieces as they give a more immediate sense of the world they were travelling through, and eventually rescued from.
The exhibition is a beautiful and daunting portrayal of the age of polar exploration,
combining art, science, geography and travelogue. (Miriam Sturdee)
90 THE LIST 3–17 Dec 2009
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