VisualArt HITLIST THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
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James McLardy: The Swan and Hostage Excellent, subversive solo exhibition of sculptures, the result of a six-week residency at the gallery. The Duchy, Glasgow, until Sat 25 Aug.
Katja Strunz: Dynamic Fatigue Test Last chance to see this collection of sculptural works from the Berlin-based artist. The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 18 Aug. Jannis Kounellis Exhibition of old and new works by one of the most influential figures of the 1960s Arte Povera movement. See review, right. Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 23 Sep.
Futureproof 2012 Showcase of photographic works by up-and-coming art school graduates from colleges across Scotland. See picture caption, page 116. Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, until Sun 16 Sep. The Clipperton Project The uninhabited island in the Pacific is the catalyst for asking pertinent questions about the links between local and global issues. See review, right. Glasgow Sculpture Studios, until Sat 20 Oct.
Infinite Jest Artists Cinthia Marcelle, Rob Pruitt and William Mackrell create work that plays with the notion of infinity in a meticulously choreographed exhibition. Dundee Contemporary Arts, until Sun 26 Aug.
The First of the Summer Wine Annual exhibition of work from the impressive Gerber collection, including canvases by major Scottish artists such as the Glasgow Boys and Girls. Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow, until Fri 31 Aug.
Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow since WWII Overview of work by some of the most important contributors to Glasgow’s thriving arts scene. Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow School of Art, until Sun 30 Sep.
116 THE LIST 16–23 Aug 2012
K R A L C H T U R
GROUP SHOW THE CLIPPERTON PROJECT Glasgow Sculpture Studios, until Sat 20 Oct ●●●●●
Clipperton is an uninhabited island in the Pacific southwest of Mexico. In March this year 20 artists and scientists from eight countries embarked on a three-week journey to this isolated French atoll where they researched the strange ring-shaped island. The Clipperton Project then allows this remote place to become a catalyst for asking pertinent questions about the links between local and global issues. The exhibition at GSS acts as an entry point into the expedition, but also as a starting point for further discussion through a series of events. Set up as a laboratory rather than a finished exhibition it showcases a collection of photographs, installations, sculptures, an underwater camera, footage, a library, video screenings and invasive plants. Where scientists aim to reveal without ambiguity and artists aim to always keep something hidden, this project allows for cross fertilisation on ways to communicate.
One of the artists, Charles Engebretsen from Scotland, said: ‘Our desires
for luxury, information, war and survival are all contained in the debris of this one atoll.’ His work for the exhibition, ‘CaCO3’, is reminiscent of a beautiful colony of grey barnacles spread across the wall. On closer inspection one realises that it is made out of small pockets of cement that he has cast in plastic bags. Combining two of the most destructive materials on our planet, his work talks about surface beauty and the wars on our oceans through relentless fishing, underwater explosives destroying marine life ecosystems. Herein lies the magic of the project. It is an idea. It does not claim to have a quick fix solution, rather it aims to provide a consciousness shifting springboard from which to approach challenging debates relating to social, environmental and political issues of global relevance, in a manageable fashion, at home. (Talitha Kotzé)
SCULPTURE JANNIS KOUNELLIS Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 23 Sep ●●●●●
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As part of Tate’s Artist Rooms touring collection, Tramway presents this exhibition of old and new works by Jannis Kounellis. As one of the most influential figures of the 1960s movement, Arte Povera, or poor art, Kounellis uses installations of everyday materials and simplistic processes in a material language, with the formal concerns of balance, weight and light. This show is industrial, both in size and reference, with a gridded layout in which the restrained selection of materials repeat throughout: steel, coal, black hats and coats, meat hooks and bells. The show responds well to the Tramway gallery, with towering steel I-beams welded like tank traps set atop Persian rugs running the length of the hall, beside a series of huge and ominously bulging sacks like a dysfunctional manufacturing line hanging from the roof. Steel panels on the top wall display a tableau of three-quarter length mens black coats, frozen in awkward positions on meat hooks. The last coat in the line is held with arms out stretched, like a crucifixion.
The show has an eerie and uneasy atmosphere, an absence of some kind, with a private vocabulary of signifiers and motifs, as well as a physical absence, like some memorial to forgotten industry and the death of a working man. Kounellis achieves an alchemical arrangement of these basic materials into something rarer, into an augmented reality in which the habits of our perception are confused, finding beauty in the mundane. (Michael Davis)