www.list.co.uk/visualart
REVIEW PORTRAITURE BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2009 Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 21 Feb ●●●●●
The popular annual exhibition arrives at the Dean Gallery following its first outing in London, featuring a host of familiar names as well as some new international entrants since the competition expanded its reach beyond the British Isles.
Of the 56 portraits, there is the usual
plethora of photorealistic representations and covertly stylised pieces, but, somewhat tellingly, little room for out-and-out abstract works. It’s possible that the presence of photographer Gillian Wearing on the judging panel influenced this, though previous years’ exhibitions have been similarly dominated by photorealism, suggesting that abstract portraiture is not in vogue. Still, there is an awed joy at viewing
the minutely detailed faces, walking up and conversing at close distance with these figures who have been stolen and preserved on canvas.
The winning entry is ‘Changeling 2’ by Peter Monkman. The slight blurring and ethereal light lends this image a quality that crisper contemporaries miss. A stand-out among the also- rans is ‘Imagine’ by Jose Luis Corella in which his daughter Paloma is artfully pegged to a washing line by her hair – the context to this portrait attempts a humour that is missing from some of the more traditional works. (Miriam Sturdee)
Visual Art
REVIEW RE-HANG WHAT YOU SEE IS WHERE YOU’RE AT Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 28 Feb ●●●●●
‘Everything is going to be alright,’ announces the neon installation by former Turner Prize winner Martin Creed as you approach the grand entrance to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It’s a fitting curtain raiser to the re-hang of the venerable institution, which now more than ever is a place to wander and get lost in while enjoying the riches of the collection. The gallery is now divided into portions, each with
their own distinct identity. ‘Drawing the Human Form’ features illustrative work from artists both well known and fresh from college, which invites the viewer to take a closer look, none more so than ECA graduate Paul Chiappe, whose miniature scene in pencil is so delicate it almost requires a magnifying glass. ‘The Artist as Subject’ offers a look at the self-portrait
and features crowd pleasers such as Andy Warhol and Douglas Gordon on the ground floor, while the gallery space opposite has a magnificent collection of work by Max Beckmann, which could be a reason to visit the gallery in itself. The beauty of a re-hang is that a familiar space
becomes transformed, and this forms a large part of the pleasures of this exhibition: there is now no area of the gallery that does not warrant thorough investigation. But What You See is Where You’re At also highlights the richness and scope of the Gallery of Modern Art’s collection. Whether it is ‘Things’ you seek (sculptural work) or installation work (such as Kitty Kraus’ powerful, disconcerting ‘Ice’) or you just want to see a fantastically rendered still life, the exhibition really does merit repeat viewing. With the promise of further rotation of the more than 5000 works in the collection, it is going to be a good year for modern art in Scotland. (Miriam Sturdee)
REVIEW MIXED MEDIA ARE WE HUMAN? Inspace, Edinburgh, until Sun 10 Jan ●●●●●
Inspace is a new ‘public engagement facility’ committed to exploring the cultural significance of informatics. It is a unique and much needed venue, as there is still so much to learn about the challenging language and techniques used in the high quality work it repeatedly presents. Its curators and artists, however, have just as much to learn about their methods of display.
Paying homage to the work of Charles Darwin, the curators have drawn together installations, projections and interactive pieces that examine our relationship to the informatics age. While you are left unclear about how to interact with works such as ‘One’ and ‘Supermono 2’, your attention is caught by more obvious pieces such as Julius von Bismarck and Benjamin Maus’ ‘The Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus’ – an elaborate, yet beautifully crafted drawing machine that does something rather clever with seven million patents – and The Black Estate artist collective’s ‘video objects’. These artworks hover at the vanguard of new intelligence, yet they have been sadly squeezed
into a now traditional ‘group show’ model. The institutional white cube setting does not invite interaction, and with super high-tech kit littering the space, you are wary of what levels of ‘interaction’ would actually swim. Similarly, the prosaic explanations are at best here a distraction – the techniques and creative research behind each project are often as appealing as the final works themselves and should be recognised accordingly. While the intrigue of digital art remains unbound, its continued want for a public is undeniable,
and although this exhibition presents works of incredible ingenuity, it confirms the as-yet-precarious position of new media practice. (Rosalie Doubal)
82 THE LIST 7–21 Jan 2010