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Reviews {VISUAL ART}
CARMEN SYLVA Established artists take on a new and exciting identity ●●●●●
A procession of odd assemblages punctuates the centre of Sierra Metro’s exhibition space. They are Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff’s latest artistic response to Peles, a late 18th century Romanian castle that has inspired their practice for over six years. Until now the site has been the
source material for two-dimensional pieces with the pair lining the walls of exhibition spaces with A3 images of Peles’ interiors. These have set the stage for invited artists to showcase other works, with the impressive castle represented in the backdrop. For their contribution to the Edinburgh Art Festival, however, they have moved from flat copies of the building to three-dimensional renderings of it.
This is a decisive break in their ongoing body of work yet it assimilates fluidly into their enquiry. When broken down the stacked
STEPHEN SUTCLIFFE: RUNAWAY, SUCCESS Biog-obsessed artist hides behind his heroes ●●●●●
It’s been a while since Yorkshire-born Glasgow resident Sutcliffe has trotted out his wares in Scotland, and it’s not hard to see why. His work is moody and peppered with arch cultural references to complex arty prima donnas Joe Orton, Lindsay Anderson, Franco Zefferelli, Dirk Bograde and so on. It’s difficult to pin down his wavering spirit. His shows are rarely satisfying, occasionally amusing and always frustrating. And so, sadly, it is with Runaway, Success, curated by
Lisa Le Feuvre. The title of the exhibition is a ham- fisted appropriation of the pull quotes on film posters, except there is a comma in the middle. You see Sutcliffe does not want success, he wants it to leave him alone. He needn’t worry too much about that.
Much of this show’s humour derives from New Yorker animator Saul Steinberg-style cartoon clouds that
crawl the walls of the opening room. They help create a pleasingly airy space in which to have the life sucked out of you by Sutcliffe’s looped collage videos, the result, unbelievably, of ten years work. By contrast his photographic works are a joy – ‘No (After Steinberg)’ infuses a corporate scene with a Thurber-esque charm, while ‘Self-Portrait with Boxes (after Steinberg)’ is unusually fun and unpretentious (for this artist). Luckily for Sutcliffe and Le Feuvre they have an ace up their sleeves. The back room is given up to the five great feature-length films by documentary filmmaker Gary Conklin, an artist Sutcliffe admires. Conklin’s films are a revelation. Making work about celebrity talents as diverse and outspoken as Paul Bowles and Gore Vidal, his films are easily comparable with those of Frederick Wiseman (Hospital, Juvenile Court) or the Maysles Brothers (Salesman, Grey Gardens). (Paul Dale) ■ Stills Gallery, 622 6200, until 30 Oct, free.
NORMAN MCBEATH & ROBERT CRAWFORD: BODY BAGS/SIMONIDES Mournful collaboration ●●●●●
Scots translations of epitaphs by the ancient Greek poet Simonides, coupled with black & white photographs, adorn the walls of two lofty ECA studios. Joined by tall vases of white lilies, classical casts from the College’s collection and a line of body bags lain in sand on the floor, it’s obvious that we’re meant to think of these galleries as mausoleums. Further, the aspect of the rooms – pouring out onto the rock face of the castle and its barracks – heavily enforces considerations of loss through conflict. While Crawford’s texts are elegant, translating epitaphs composed for civilians and soldiers killed during the Persian Wars, in battles such as Thermopylae, a certain nuance is lost through their pairing with McBeath’s photographs. Square-format studies of scenes from contemporary life, it is easy to appreciate that the duo intended the relationship between text and image to be tangential. The texts, however, speak as eloquently of today as they do of their historical birthplace. Coupled with the overbearing symbolism of the deathly gallery setting, McBeath’s poignantly commonplace images become strangely illustrative. (Rosalie Doubal) ■ Edinburgh College of Art, 221 6000, until 9 Sep, free.
F E S T I V A L
objects (which range from clay sculptures, glass and copper cabinets and plinths, tassles, carpets and fire hoses) are paraphernalia distinctly drawn from the castle (itself a pastiche of Gothic, Art deco, Rococo and Renaissance styles). They are also ordered to replicate the sequence in which the viewer would encounter them if touring the original site, injecting a further rational conception to what may initially be approached as the articulation of purely materialistic concerns. The show is called Carmen Sylva, the alias used by Queen Elizabeth of Romania who lived at Peles. The selection of a pseudonym for this show is apt for Stoever and Wolff who here too shed their former associations and take on a new, and exciting identity. (Rachael Cloughton) ■ Sierra Metro, 07731 302960, until 11 Sep (Thu–Sun or by appointment), free.
18–25 Aug 2011 THE LIST 77