LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL REVIEWS FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
CALLUM INNES: THE REGENT BRIDGE Casting light on an Edinburgh landmark ●●●●● TIM ROLLINS AND K.O.S.: THE BLACK SPOT Energetic response to great books ●●●●●
Callum Innes’ first public art commission is easy to miss at certain times of day. Using a simple strip of lights along the length of each pavement under the Regent Bridge, at night Innes’ installation lights up the walls above and casts eerie light and static shadows towards the bridge’s arch. The nature of ‘The Regent Bridge’, made
with lighting artist Gavin Fraser, means it will be experienced differently each time it is seen. At dusk it is subtle, barely there – a layer of colour reminiscent in effect of Innes’ paintings. The light colours change, too, meaning the work both contrasts to and other times complements the dark, sinister tunnel and its dripping, dirty walls, which lurk under the impressive bridge above.
Not helped by a delay to its opening due to a manufacturing fault, there is a slight sense of anticlimax to this work – but it still transforms the dark underside of this significant piece of Edinburgh’s architecture. (Rhona Taylor) ■ Ingleby Gallery, 556 4441, until 2 Sep, free.
The works by Tim Rollins and K.O.S. in The Black Spot are every bit as powerful as the story behind them; Rollins, working as a teacher in the Bronx in the 80s, developed a collaborative and responsive strategy for making art with his disadvantaged pupils, combining it with lessons in reading, writing and literature. One would read aloud from a novel while the others would draw, relating the words to their own experiences and creating their own very personal responses. In this exhibition of works by Rollins and the
Kids of Survival, the energy is palpable, and the responses to the literature on which the artists have drawn, both metaphorically and literally, are honest and raw. Appropriations and reworkings of texts by Shakespeare, George Orwell, HG Wells and others are striking and dynamic, and none more so than the responses to Kafka’s Amerika: surreal, playful and organic orchestras of gold watercolour, echoing the book’s hopeful turn of events. Also striking and relevant is a work made this year with 24 young people from the Lothians in response to On the Origin of Species, reflecting the truly evolving nature of Rollins’ work as an inspirational teacher and collaborative partner. (Rhona Taylor) ■ Talbot Rice Gallery, 650 2210, until 20 Oct (Mon– Sat from 4 Sep), free.
SUSAN PHILIPSZ: TIMELINE Other-worldly chorale from the Turner Prize winner ●●●●●
It only takes a few seconds, and the lunchtime Calton Hill day-trippers may not even register the three-note female vocal harmony emanating from Nelson’s monument, and which segues into the faint sound of a cannon being fired for the One O’Clock Gun. In its clarity, however, as Susan Philipsz’ major city-wide intervention ricochets into the ether at exactly the same time in five other sites, it becomes an ancient siren’s call that transverses history as well as geography.
Inspired by the electrical cable hung between the monument and Edinburgh Castle in 1861 to mark
out the speed the sound of a gun travels at by way of Homer’s Odyssey, Timeline is part classicist gift-wrapping, part Eno-esque jingle that permeates the air with a purity that transcends the cannon- fire, and arguably makes the daily ritual even more iconic. Of course, the cable Timeline travels along is long gone now, as invisible as the half-built tramlines and drill-battered roadworks clogging up the city’s physical presence are visible. Timeline, then, is an intangible reimagining, a call to arms that both acknowledges and cries out for a better place as Philipsz’ own voice maps out possibilities that are about infinitely more than simply getting from A to B. It’s barely there, but if Philipsz’ other-worldly chorale were made a permanent fixture, the city would be singing every day. (Neil Cooper) ■ Timeline can be heard outside Nelson’s Monument on Calton Hill; at Old Calton Cemetery; on North Bridge; on Waverley Bridge; behind the National Gallery of Scotland on The Mound and in West Princes Street Gardens, until 2 Sep, daily 1pm.
WE ARE ALL UFO-NAUTS Exploration of the uncanny ●●●●●
The uncanny possibilities of everyday life thread through this group show, the manipulation of the real through artistic technique and judicious editing creating a sense of the playfully otherworldly. The extraterrestrial is, if not a theme, certainly a recurring feature, with Slovak artist Julius Koller’s photographs having fun with a particularly retro UFO iconography: the odd-looking, bearded man, the deserted freeway, the saucer-shaped object and the frozen look of horror at the unknown (amidst a greenhouse of Triffid-like plantlife). The stellar is hinted at in Joe Winter’s hung photocopies of the light from desk lamps and the shimmering dress worn by the woman being rotated from the ceiling like a disco ball in Catherine Payton’s video piece, although Gintaras Didziapetris’ contribution – a sheet of what appears to be wrapping paper printed with a constellation of Photoshop crop tool icons – is perhaps a little too lightweight in concept. The most resonant work in this subtly-curated show, however, is Payton’s centrepiece installation, a gold curtain hung in an impenetrable circle, a Lynchian construct charged with a profound and deliberately frustrating sense of the unknowable. (David Pollock) ■ Rhubaba Gallery, rhubaba.org, until 2 Sep (Thu– Sun or by appointment), free.
16–23 Aug 2012 THE LIST 79