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VISUAL ART | Previews
SCULPTURE & PAINTING DAN COLEN: THE ILLUSION OF LIFE Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 24 Nov
‘The different bodies of my work end themselves when there’s no more discovery to be had,’ says Dan Colen, alumnus of the brash early-2000s downtown Manhattan art scene. His penchant for using spray paint and chewing gum as materials, and appropriating Disney-style images (his new show’s title is taken from the Disney animation bible, a popular reference text for Colen) even as he attempts to recreate the pattern of bird droppings in paint, has conjured a body of work that sits at the intersection of postmodern ennui and darkly amusing pop-art playfulness.
This show, his first in Scotland, is a result of that process of reaching a conclusion to his previous method of practice. But in trying to get away from his ‘flower paintings’ – made by using the flower almost as a brush, stroking the surface of the paper or being thrown violently against it – he’s created a whole new set that this time come with their own sculptural companions. ‘It’s hard to talk in too much depth about the sculptures, because they’re such a new set of options,’ he says on the line from his New York studio.
‘Some of them are pretty basic constructions with everyday
materials,’ he continues. There’s a twisting tower of books that looks like it penetrates through the building, as well as some mechanised pieces, such as a pair of shoes that dance on the ceiling. The urge behind each new shift in his methods, he says, is to
start off with a very basic material or situation and then to figure out how to make the mark that only it can. ‘Usually by the end of the process I’m tuned into what satisfies me about it most, I’ve seen the potential and I know how to exploit it. Here, the paintings function almost like backdrops − they’re like vortexes into psychedelic other worlds.’ (David Pollock)
FILM MOUNIRA AL SOLH / SARAH FORREST CCA, Glasgow, until Sun 10 Nov
PAINTING ALLAN RAMSAY AT 300 Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 19 Oct–Sun 9 Feb 2014 COLLABORATIVE PROJECT CONVOCATION: COLM CILLE’S SPIRAL Glasgow School of Art, until Fri 1 Nov
Thinking locally and acting globally is increasingly becoming the CCA’s raison d’être. Nowhere is this more evident than in these twin solo shows by two very different artists working in film.
Glasgow-based Sarah Forrest looks to Jean- Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea to question notions of narrative between film and text. She first explored these ideas after being awarded the Margaret Tait Residency in 2012, which resulted in Forrest’s film homage to Tait, that now.
Al Solh, meanwhile, follows on from her installation Dinosaurs, an investigation of independent American filmmaker John Cassavetes, with an exploration of the recent Syrian immigration to Beirut following the civil war, in a work that couldn’t be more current.
If Allan Ramsay were alive today, he’d probably be a celebrity. Good-looking, cultured and a regular visitor to Italy, he painted more than 50 royal portraits and studied under some of the greatest artists of the Baroque period. His full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll ended up on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s banknotes, and even when his health gave way after the dislocation of his right arm, he turned to literature to maintain his creativity. Ramsay, who was from Edinburgh, was also an
abolitionist, pulled in extra income from painting upper-class tourists, and wasn’t shy about emphasising what were described at the time as the ‘mulatto’ features of Queen Charlotte – or any other member of the aristocracy – that may have been inherited from African ancestors.
A programme of older film works by both Despite his frequent sojourns in Rome, Ramsay’s
artists will also be screened alongside the two new commissions. This will feature two films by Forrest, including that now, and five by al Solh in a programme lasting just short of three hours. Although their backgrounds are in different places and experiences, the common ground between the two artists should become vividly apparent. (Neil Cooper) work was heavily influenced by French art: skillful and delicate, he could be sweet and tender – never more so than when painting his second wife. An alluring insight into his drawing and modelling intelligence, the Scottish National Gallery’s exhibition marking the 300th anniversary of his birth coincides with a major show at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. (Barry Gordon)
Scotland’s spiral knot forms the basis of this group exhibition, not just as its subject matter but its entire format as the work develops, evolves and expands from a single starting point: a residency in the Western Isles. For nine days in August, artists from Scotland and Ireland joined academics from King’s College London on Raasay, Skye.
There, they discussed and responded to themes
linked to St Columba and medieval thinking, as well as to questions about landscape, spirituality, religion and identity. Individual ideas and collaborative responses were then developed during a subsequent event at the CCA, which evolved into the diverse work on display at Glasgow School of Art. The project’s underlying objective was to foster an open, rather than prescriptive, platform for creating work. The diverse range of disciplines among the participating artists (including Thomas Joshua Cooper, Sue Brind and Hardeep Pandhal) should produce some surprising results.
The show forms part of the Derry-Londonderry City of Culture project ‘Colm Cille’s Spiral’, and the work will also be displayed there in November. (Rhona Taylor)
112 THE LIST 17 Oct–14 Nov 2013