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HITLIST THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
✽ 188th RSA Annual Exhibition: Focus on Film See review, left. Royal Scottish
Academy, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 May.
✽ Alex Frost: Reproduction Frost uses the idea that Britain is in the midst of a
baby boom as a playful stepping-off point to explore issues of reproduction, both human and artistic, in this solo show (pictured, above). See review, page 96. Glasgow Print Studio, until Sun 18 May.
✽ Rebecca Gouldson: Industrial Shift In Gouldson’s first solo show, she
concentrates on the images and objects of historic industry, finding beauty and intrigue in its redundant tools and relics. See review, page 102. Edinburgh Printmakers, until Sat 24 May.
✽ Gabriel Kuri: All probability resolves into form A sculptural show-and-tell of
blankets, fire extinguishers, matches, bottles of water and toiletries, reassembled as an archive on silver-blanketed pallets. The materials will be donated to two Glasgow charities at the end of the run. See review, page 97. The Common Guild, Glasgow, until Sat 7 Jun.
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✽ Jordan Wolfson Provocative installation
by the New York artist based around ‘Raspberry Poser’, his billboard-sized projection of animations and CGI imagery, which includes a cameo by Wolfson himself. See review, page 96. McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, until Mon 21 Apr.
✽ Tania Kovats: Oceans Exhibition bringing together water from around the world in this participatory installation from the
artist who took her Rivers exhibition to Jupiter Artland in 2012. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 25 May. 17 Apr–15 May 2014 THE LIST 95
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FOCUS ON FILM 188th RSA annual exhibition
P erhaps the biggest criticism that can be levelled at this year’s Royal Scottish Academy annual members’ exhibition is that there’s almost too much to soak up. Between the vast submission-based selection upstairs and the curated rooms downstairs, there are more than 350 works to take in. Even to narrow it down to the latter, a group of Scottish works on film and video curated by Ronald Forbes, RSA, is to expose oneself to plenty of hours of viewing.
Many of the films are grouped into hour- long loops by theme and purpose. One group, Form and Structure: Time and Place, includes Sam Spreckley’s mesmeric, metronomic study of dozens of dandelion clocks being incinerated by a lighter, and Sam Firth’s split- screen, decades-separated car journey, Stay the Same. Another split-screen meditation on time elapsed is Murray Grigor’s mesmerising and essential Space and Light Revisited, tracing the architectural degradation of St
Peter’s Seminary, near Cardross.
A narrative-based loop features Peter Capaldi’s Oscar-winning Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life and ex-Beta Band-er John Maclean’s Pitch Black Heist, while there’s space for John Byrne’s brutally degraded but historically striking arthouse autobiography Byrne On Byrne, as well as a selection of documentaries and music videos, including Errors’ Pleasure Palaces as imagined by Rachel Maclean (her ‘Lolcats’ is here too).
Also featuring artists including Graham Fagan, Dalziel + Scullion and Ruth Paxton, this is an expansive and essential tour through the highlights of Scottish film art and short filmmaking from recent years. It’s very highly recommended, if a little cluttered, but you may want to take lunch. (David Pollock)
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 May. ●●●●●