■ BLACKWELLS 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8222. Mon–Fri 9am–8pm (Tue from 9.30am); Sat 9am–6pm; Sun noon–6pm. FREE Jennifer Thomson Until Sun 4 Sep. Original paintings and prints by the Edinburgh-based artist. ■ BOURNE FINE ART 6 Dundas Street, 557 4050. Mon–Fri 10am–6pm; Sat 11am–4pm. FREE Five Centuries of Scottish Portraiture Until Mon 5 Sep. Examples of the Scottish portrait by artists including Ramsay, Raeburn and Gillies. EAF.
■ CANONGATE VENTURE 5 New Street, 226 0000. Tue–Sun 11am–7pm.
✽✽ FREE 400 Women Until Sun 4 Sep. A conceptual installation by
Tamsyn Challenger created as a response to gender violence around the world. EAF & Fringe. ■ CENTRAL LIBRARY George IV Bridge, 242 8000. Mon–Thu 10am–8pm; Fri 10am–5pm; Sat 9am–1pm FREE Costume and Custom in Japanese Art Until Wed 31 Aug. Art from the 18th- and 19th-century Japan with a particular focus on dress and daily rituals. EAF. FREE This Is Not An Exhibition Until Wed 31 Aug. An intriguing ‘non- exhibition’ by ECA students designed to be deliberately inconspicuous.
■ CITY ART CENTRE 2 Market Street, 529 3993. Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; Sun noon–5pm
✽✽ David Mach: Precious Light Until Sun 16 Oct. £5 (£3.50).
Daring exhibition of large-scale collage and sculpture works confronting the narratives of the King James Bible. EAF.
■ COLLECTIVE GALLERY 22–28 Cockburn Street, 220 1260. Daily 10am–6pm during August. FREE Hans Schabus: Remains of the Day Fri 5 Aug–Sun 2 Oct. An installation commissioned by Collective, consisting of the rubbish accumulated by the artist and his family during one calendar year.
■ CORN EXCHANGE GALLERY Constitution Street, 561 7300. Tue–Fri 11am–4.30pm FREE Hayashi Takeshi: Haku-u ●●●●● Until Thu 22 Sep. Serene stone sculptures from the Japanese artist. See review, left. EAF. FREE Martin Finnin: The Forgotten Art of Floating Until Thu 22 Sep. Extended run for this exhibition of richly coloured paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolour.
LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
Events are listed by city, day, type then alphabetically by name. Submit listings at least 14 days before publication to clubs@list.co.uk. Edinburgh listings are compiled by Laura Ennor. ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry
GLASGOW ■ ART’S COMPLEX St Margaret’s House, 151 London Road, 661 1924. Daily 11am–6pm during exhibitions. FREE Haleh Jamali: Pose Sat 6 Aug–Sun 4 Sep. Portraiture aiming to address the social aspects of representation. FREE Recrea(c)tion: Versatile Beings Sat 6–Tue 30 Aug. The result of
ongoing research into cross-artform work in dance and visual art conducted by Adeline Bourret.
■ ATTICSALT 50 Thistle Street, North East Lane, 225 2093. Wed & Fri 2.30–4.30pm; Thu & Sat 10.30am–4.30pm. FREE Boris Bittker: Passing Through Zero Sat 6–Sat 27 Aug. Photographs offering a personal take on the history of the late 20th century. EAF. ■ AXOLOTL 35 Dundas Street, 557 1460. Tue–Thu 11am–4pm; Fri & Sat 11am–6pm. FREE Richard DeMarco & Joseph Beuys Sat 6 Aug–Mon 5 Sep. Works by the two collaborating artists, including those inspired by Beuys’ many visits to Scotland. EAF.
HAYASHI TAKESHI: HAKU-U (WHITE RAIN) Impressive hand-carved sculptures ●●●●●
Once upon a time, Japanese artist Hayashi Takeshi looked out over a paddy field in the rain, the texture of the water’s surface as each inverted wet plop rose and fell clearly ingraining itself on his memory. With the primary and titular work on display here (the other is ‘Rin- kan’, five gnarled columns of black granite which might echo a remembered walk in a forest), he’s not only tried to recreate what he remembers of that scene in tangible form, it’s as if he wishes to lend it a permanence that the natural state of water can never possess. Using 32 roughly rectangular lumps of white marble, a few small
enough to fit in a rucksack, most large enough to require two men to carry them, the associate professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music has hand-carved and polished their pieced- together surfaces into an undulating, mock-fluid landscape, the rainfall re-enacted as nipple-shaped bumps on each block. This seems to be a piece about the imperfection of memory, as even Hayashi’s supreme effort to remember and recreate brings only fragmentary results.
The discovery that the work was imported from Japan, however, adds another intriguing dimension: in a global era when the transmission of ideas has been exponentially speeded-up, Hayashi has cast the ultimate intangibility of a memory as so many time- bound pounds of air-freight. Whether that makes it any more ‘real’ or not is uncertain, but it certainly lends it monumental, almost archaeological, significance. (David Pollock) ■ Corn Exchange Gallery, 553 5050, until 22 Sep (not Sun/Mon), free.
Listings {VISUAL ART}
■ COWGATE Old Town. edinburghartfestival.com FREE Body of Evidence Until Sun 4 Sep. Daily, all day. Site-specific installation by Chris Moore: a polished trace line designed to evoke the press of cattle bodies through the bottleneck created by the archway that supports South Bridge over the Cowgate. EAF.
■ CRAIGMILLAR COMMUNITY ARTS CENTRE 58 Newcraighall Road, 669 8432. Mon–Fri noon–4pm. FREE Artistic Creations Until Fri 26 Aug. Craigmillar Community Arts annual show.
■ DOVECOT STUDIOS 10 Infirmary Street, 550 3660. Daily 10.30am–5.30pm. FREE Chris Drury: Land, Water and Language Until Sun 4 Sep. Based on a canoe trip around North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, Chris Drury’s mixed media exhibition features a variety of land/water paradoxes. EAF. FREE Heirlooms Until Sun 4 Sep. An historical display of brightly coloured Indian and Javanese cloths, silks and batiks is juxtaposed with three contemporary pieces chosen by Elizabeth Guest to represent the influence of Indian textile traditions on contemporary Scottish textile artists. EIF.
■ EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART 74 Lauriston Place, 221 6000. Daily 10am–5pm. FREE Body Bags / Simonides Until Fri 9 Sep. Epitaphs by Greek poet Simonides appear in translations by Robert Crawford alongside evocative, square format, black and white photographs by Norman McBeath. EAF. FREE Somewhere in Time: Postliminal Until Fri 26 Aug. Daily 10am–5pm. A group exhibition engaging with the idea of satellite and the broader connotations of the term. EAF. FREE Anish Kapoor: Flashback Fri 5 Aug–Sun 9 Oct. Two major works – ‘White Sand, Red Millet, Many Flowers’ (1982) and ‘Untitled’ (2010) – by the celebrated sculptor, on show in the sculpture court. EAF. ■ EDINBURGH GALLERY 20a Dundas Street, 557 5002. Mon–Fri 10am–5pm; Sat 10am–1pm FREE Joan Renton Until Sat 13 Aug. Paintings by the much-garlanded watercolourist.
■ EDINBURGH PRINTMAKERS 23 Union Street, 557 2479. Tue–Sat 10am–6pm
✽✽ FREE Lineage Until Sat 3 Sep. Prints by London-based artists
Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport and Julian Opie, all of whom explore the use of the line in their work. EAF. F E S T I V A L
4–11 Aug 2011 THE LIST 81