VISUAL ART
LAST CHANCE The Age of Improvement Until Mon 31 Dec. Portraits from the century of Scotland’s great transformation, 1750–1850, including Nasmyth’s deliberately and stylishly unfinished picture of Robert Burns, Danloux’s all-action portrait of Admiral Duncan keeping a cool head in the middle of a sea battle, Raeburn’s picture of Walter Scott as king of the hill, before bankruptcy forced him to work himself to death, and Richard Dadd’s unnerving, hyper-detailed picture of Sir Alexander Morison, the ‘alienist’ who was consultant to the Bethlem psychiatric hospital where Dadd was confined. ■ SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE 43–45 High Street, 556 9579. Mon–Sat 10am–6pm. NEW: Tommy Perman Fri 14 Dec– Sat 5 Jan. Drawings by the artist/designer and member of the FOUND collective.
■ STILLS 23 Cockburn Street, 622 6200. Mon–Thu 11am–9pm; Fri–Sun 11am–6pm LAST CHANCE Lena Dobrowolska, Caroline Douglas, Morwenna Kearsley: Work in Progress Until Thu 20 Dec. Three very different young photographers all investigating experience, memory and time; Dobrowolska photographs people and places between Edinburgh and her native Poland, Douglas has an interest in found pictures and also makes puckish video work; Kearsley uses film and wet darkrooms to reflect her interest in analogue photography as a medium. A chance to see how artists make photographs and to reflect on the importance of photography. NEW Economy Sat 19 Jan–Sun 21 Apr. Daily 11am–6pm. Exploration of the resurgence of the economy as a key factor shaping people’s lives. Presented across multiple venues and curated by Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd.
■ SUMMERHALL 1 Summerhall, 0845 874 3001. Daily 11am–6pm. NEW Antonio Claudio Carvalho: Great Works Of Art and More Great Works Of Art Fri 14 Dec–Sat 26 Jan. Ficitonal book covers and posters, commemorating famous people from art, literature and philosophy.
✽NEW Andy Warhol & Joseph Beuys: The ‘Lost’ Photographs Fri 14 Dec–Sat 26 Jan. Documenting the unlikely but genuine friendship between two great 20th century artists: Andy Warhol, the Ice King of deadpan nihilism, and Joseph Beuys, the mischievous, fedora’d shaman of environmentalist modernism. Warhol once held a party for Beuys, and these photographs, long thought lost, document the event. NEW Antonio Claudio Carvalho Fri 14 Dec–Sat 26 Jan. Ficitonal book covers commemorating famous people from art, literature and philosophy. NEW Ingrid Christie: 12 Factorial Fri 14 Dec–Sat 26 Jan. Ingrid Christie, artist-in-residence at Summerhall and one of the brainiest of contemporary artists (before she turned to art she was a brilliant maths student) has produced 12 panelled paintings which can be rearranged in over 245 billion combinations, and which thanks to a digital display in the gallery, are in fact continually thus rearranged. The factorial of 12 is actually a little over 479 billion, but you won’t hear us complaining. NEW Philipe Broutin: One Day/ Concerto for a Mouth Fri 14 Dec– Sat 26 Jan. Installation work on themes of mortality. NEW Stephen Thorpe: Once It’s In You, It Never Goes Away Fri 14 Dec–Sat 26 Jan. Paintings and drawings tempting the viewer to journey into the artist’s imagination. NEW Richard Demarco Archive Festive Exhibition Sat 15 Dec–Thu
142 THE LIST 13 Dec 2012–24 Jan 2013
■ WHITESPACE 11 Gayfield Square, 07814 514771. NEW Leigh Chorlton: Portraits Sat 15 Dec–Fri 21 Dec. Daily 11am–3pm. Unconventional political portraits. OUTSIDE THE CITIES
■ DISCOVERY POINT Discovery Quay, Dundee, 01382 309060. Nov–Mar; Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; Sun 11am–5pm. LAST CHANCE Arctic Bound Exhibition Until Sun 6 Jan. Daily 10am–5pm. Arctic photographs by Alexander Rodger & David Dickson, 1894 –1897. ■ DUNCAN OF JORDANSTONE COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN 13 Perth Road, Dundee, 01382 345330. Mon–Fri 9.30am–5pm; Sat 10.30am– 4.30pm. NEW Edgar Schmitz: Surplus Cameo Decor Thu 13 & Fri 14 Dec, 9.30am–5.30pm. The gallery is turned into a backdrop for cameo appearances and film plots as Schmitz explores the notion of escape from situations.
■ DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS 152 Nethergate, Dundee, 01382 909900. Tue–Sat 11am–6pm (Thu until 8pm); Sun noon–6pm.
✽Trisha Baga: Holiday Until Sun 27 Jan. American artist Trisha Baga
mounts her first solo show in a public UK gallery. Featuring new multimedia work inspired by Dundee charity shops and pound stores and her acclaimed Plymouth Rock (2012), a installation that manages to cover pilgrims, Chinese takeways, and Justin Bieber. See preview, page 140.
■ LINLITHGOW BURGH HALLS The Cross, Linlithgow, 01506 282720. Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat 9am-5pm; Tue & Thur 9am-9pm; Sun 11am-5pm. Alison Kinnaird: Luminesce Until Sun 3 Feb. International glass artist Alison Kinnaird’s work fuses light and colour to create pieces inspired by the Scottish landscape and the human figure. ■ MCMANUS: DUNDEE’S ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM Albert Square, Meadowside, Dundee, 01382 307200. Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; Sun 12.30pm–4.30pm. Reflections from the Tay Until Sun 11 Aug. Paintings by artists with links to Dundee, including the Tayport Artists’ Circle, the Dundee Classicists, Seven Painters in Dundee, the Scottish Colourists and others.
■ PERTH MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY 78 George Street, Perth, 01738 632488. Mon–Sat 10am–5pm. Artist Rooms: Robert Mapplethorpe Until Sat 27 Apr. Moving, arresting and truly significant work by prolific American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Featuring ground-breaking portraiture of his contemporaries – Andy Warhol, Truman Capote and Patti Smith – and his iconic self-portraits. Highly recommended.
■ STIRLING CASTLE Old Town, Stirling, 01786 450000. LAST CHANCE Scotsman Photography Exhibition Until Mon 31 Dec. Daily 9.30am–5pm. Included in castle admission. Photographs of readers’ favourite places submitted as part of the Historic Scotland/Scotsman competition. Twelve photos will be included in the 2014 Historic Scotland calendar. ■ THE WATERMILL Mill Street, Aberfeldy, 01887 822896. LAST CHANCE SCOTia dePICTa Until Sun 13 Jan. Mon-Sat 10am–5pm; Sun 11am–5pm. A wry view of Scotland through the eyes of acclaimed Scottish film maker and writer, Murray Grigor.
REVIEW PAINTING BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2012 Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 27 Jan ●●●●●
Should the viewer have taken the lift rather than the stairs, the first image which greets them in this year’s BP Portrait Prize has been, they will find, deployed for maximum effect. Athenian artist Antonios Titakis’ ‘Silent Eyes’ is a large-scale extreme close-up of a pretty and rather punkish young woman in monochrome, from a vantage point so near and so intimate that the very pores on her skin stand out. This piece bears an impact which is repeated throughout the works
showing as part of this year’s BP Portrait Prize display – if a visit to the National Portrait Gallery is a trip through the styles and techniques of portraiture through the centuries, then the current trend is very much to obtain a photorealist effect through painting. This is certainly represented in the choice of winning entries: Aleah Chaplin’s striking but somehow affectionate nude of her aunt; Ignacio Estudillo’s portrait of his grandfather sitting on the edge of his bed, captured as if through a night vision lens, a study of true isolation in the dark; and Alan Coulson’s ’Richie Culver’, a detailed study of a distinctive looking young artist wearing tattoos and a Hassidic-looking beard and hat.
As with Jamie Routley’s Young Artist winner, a triptych of ruddy- faced newspaper seller Tony Lewis, or Carl Randall’s monochrome Howson-meets-Hopper representation of the patrons in a Tokyo noodle bar, this year’s work is best when simply-posed and unvarnished by compositional gimmickry, such as photographs stagily-placed in the background or a budgie resting on Derren Brown’s foot. Just recreating the features of those involved with truthful expressivity is enough to tell their stories to the viewer. (David Pollock)
24 Jan. Sculptural and other works from the archive of Richard Demarco, including pieces by Paul Neagu, Henning Christiansen, Ian Hamilton Finlay and others. NEW Joseph Beuys: Small Social Sculptures Tue 15 Jan–Thu 24 Jan. Daily 11am–6pm. Joseph Beuys coined the phrase ‘social sculpture’ as a way of characterising his more performance-related later career, but it extended even to the cards he designed as invitations and publicity items for his gallery shows and performances (or ‘actions’ as he called them). Beuys’ postcard art represents over one-third of all the invitations he created in his lifetime. ■ TALBOT RICE GALLERY University of Edinburgh, South Bridge, 650 2210. Tue–Sat 10am–5pm NEW Serge Charchoune: The Exhibition is Open Tue 8 Jan–Sat 16 Feb. Enigmatic Russian artist (1888- 1975), who played with many styles only to elude classification and whose work is only now beginning to be valued. Curated by Glasgow artist Merlin James. NEW Zoe Beloff Tue 8 Jan–Sat 16 Feb. Scottish-born artist who moved to the USA in 1980. The Days of the Commune draws links between the Paris Commune and the Occupy Wall Street movement, whereas Dreamland commemorates the centennial of Freud’s visit to Coney Island.