list.co.uk/visualart Previews | VISUAL ART
PREVIEW FILM / PHOTOGRAPHY STAN DOUGLAS Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 15 Feb
When Stan Douglas’ play, Helen Lawrence, appeared as part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, its live depiction of a post-WWII film noir was beamed against a 3D photographic backdrop. The work looked at the class and racial divides of Vancouver’s rundown Hogan’s Alley district, later cleaned up then razed in the name of urban renewal.
The 3D remains of Hogan’s Alley can be seen in Douglas’
remarkable large-scale image that forms part of his new Fruitmarket show. Also here will be ‘Video’, which recasts Orson Welles’ film of Kafka’s The Trial with a Senegalese woman in the Parisian suburb of La Courneuve, where some of the worst violence of 2005’s riots took place. ‘Sarkozy was still minister of the interior when we shot the
piece,’ says Douglas, ‘and his office tried to shut our production down, even though we had made deals with the local mayor and local gangs. The police were afraid we would start a riot, but in the end we were allowed to shoot exteriors between 4am and 7am.’
The show will also feature Douglas’ ‘Corrupt Files’ series of ‘acts of photographic disobedience’, as well as his 1997 piece, ‘Der Sandmann’, which juxtaposes footage of an urban garden in Potsdam outside Berlin alongside film of the building site it later became.
‘“Der Sandmann” came out of being in Berlin a few years after the Wall came down,’ Douglas explains. ‘As in Helen Lawrence, the setting is one in which the urban fabric of a place is being radically transformed. DDR buildings were being destroyed, imperial Prussian ones were being restored and there was an influx of western capital intending to make nearby Wansee a luxury resort again. It felt like multiple times were inhabiting the same space and that’s what “Der Sandmann” looks like.’ (Neil Cooper)
K A R G U L A L E K S A N D R A
PREVIEW PRINTMAKING NO FIXED ABODE Edinburgh Printmakers, until Tue 23 Dec
No Fixed Abode is the title of this year’s Annual Members Show at Edinburgh Printmakers, which highlights the work of artists using facilities at the space. This exhibition aligns with the studio’s policy to engage with relevant contemporary issues and specifically arose from a consideration of the additional challenges facing the homeless during winter, typically a period of generosity
This November, Edinburgh Printmakers and
The Big Issue come together to consider issues of ‘home’ and ‘homelessness’. No Fixed Abode is the outcome of collaboration between artists based at the studio and Big Issue vendors, which has provided the impetus for works exploring how the concept of home relates to societal status and experience, as well as the effects of homelessness. As part of the exhibition’s organisation process,
Edinburgh Printmakers worked alongside arts groups from the charity Crisis Skylight Edinburgh. They also held a meet-and-greet event, a portraiture drawing class and workshops to foster personal interaction between the artists and vendors. The hope is that this exhibition will challenge public perceptions of homelessness as some kind of ‘other’, as well as encourage viewers to reassess their own conceptions of home. (Jennifer Owen)
PREVIEW MIXED MEDIA GLASGOW WOMEN’S LIBRARY: 21 REVOLUTIONS Platform, Glasgow, until Sun 7 Dec PREVIEW INSTALLATION ELIZABETH CORKERY: SMALL DECORS The Telfer Gallery, Glasgow, until Sun 23 Nov
21 Revolutions invited emerging and established female Scottish writers and artists to respond to Glasgow Women’s Library’s collections to mark the organisation’s 21st anniversary.
GWL hosts an eclectic collection of material, from suffragette campaigns to the national Lesbian Archive. For the artistic commissions, which resulted in a new publication and this current exhibition at Platform, each artist worked at GWL to produce new research, narratives, poetry, prints and editions.
Ruth Barker developed her practice in
performance and designed a wearable, limited edition scarf. The work ‘has been influenced by photocopied ephemera in the archive, handwritten notes, announcements of meetings and handmade posters and fliers,’ says Barker. Meanwhile, Kate Davis, using intricate pencil drawings, explored the ‘complexities of the past’ through her work. Helen de Main’s work comprises 21 screenprints inspired by the library’s iconic Spare Rib magazine collection. Main observes that its ‘political and feminist discourse still seems pertinent now, with the continued pressure over decades to reach anything resembling equality.’ (Alex Hetherington)
After a month-long residency at the Telfer Gallery, Boston-based Australian artist Elizabeth Corkery explores the garden environment and the spatial and representational experience surrounding it for Small Decors. ‘A lot of my practice recently has been about gardens, looking at different manipulations in natural environments and what narrative can exist in the desire to control or manipulate space,’ says Corkery.
Although trained as a printmaker, Corkery’s work has recently become installation-based, utilising printed elements. This has drawn her to the repetition, reproduction and modularity observed in the multiple-component, pre-fab construction of the glasshouse. In Small Decors, Corkery explores winter gardens, specifically Glasgow’s Kibble Palace, and draws connections between the structure and the tradition of Victorian toy theatres. ‘They grew in popularity at the same time as the glasshouse in the UK and share relationships with the playing out of mini-world environments and in transportability,’ says Corkery. The experience and exploration of constructed decors will be played out as a modulated scene, as the Telfer Gallery itself becomes a staged space. (Kirsty Neale)
13 Nov–11 Dec 2014 THE LIST 97
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