list.co.uk/visualart Previews & Reviews | VISUAL ART
PREVIEW PAINTING & PRINTS LUC TUYMANS: BIRDS OF A FEATHER Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 19 Dec
Provocative Belgian painter Luc Tuymans draws on the Scottish Enlightenment for inspiration in his first solo exhibition in Scotland. Tuymans, whose subjects have included gas chambers, serial killers and contemporary right-wing politicians, has created a series of new works which respond to Enlightenment portraits by Henry Raeburn. He has asked for several of the portraits, part of an Edinburgh
University collection, to be hung alongside his own work. ‘I knew he was a fan of Raeburn, so my first approach was to tell him about our Raeburn collection and offer to arrange a private showing,’ says principal curator Pat Fisher.
Tuymans’ paintings of yellow hybrid canaries could be
seen as an oblique interrogation of Enlightenment ideas, the natural world being tamed and controlled by humankind’s increasing knowledge. ‘They could be argued to be a quite unusual response to Raeburn,’ insists Fisher. ‘I think Tuymans is conscious of rarefied knowledge and systems of power and how these groups flock together.’ Silkscreen prints suggesting ghostly crowd scenes will be hung
alongside the Raeburn portraits. ‘All Tuymans’ work is subject to interpretation,’ continues Fisher. ‘It’s not about reducing it to a literal interpretation, but he is interested in the concept of humanism in the Enlightenment, and fact that this was going on at the same time as the Highland Clearances.’ Tuymans is one of a number of contemporary painters
credited with reinvigorating the artform in the 1990s. His work interrogates the power of images, from the shocking to the mundane, as Fisher concludes: ‘We see a shockingly large number of images every day from the minute we open our eyes, real and mediated, but we also edit them, and I think this is what Tuymans is doing.’ (Susan Mansfield)
REVIEW PAINTING WILLIAM GEAR (1915-1997): THE PAINTER THAT BRITAIN FORGOT City Art Centre, Edinburgh, until Sun 14 Feb ●●●●●
As the title implies, this major retrospective of William Gear, one of Britain’s most accomplished 20th century abstract painters, is long overdue. Opening on Gear’s earlier works from the late 1940s and tracing the artist’s output during his time as part of the avant-garde movement CoBrA, the show immediately establishes what it set out to achieve: this is an artist who is (ironically) unforgettable.
Richly textured canvases of vivid colours, sliced into energetic compositions by jagged black lines, reverberate on the gallery walls. These works are certainly captivating but in the years that followed, Gear sold his possessions in order to survive. Despite this adversity, his output continued at full steam during this period, with works such as ‘Mau Mau’ (1953), a sludgy brown and silvery grey canvas cut like stained glass by black lines. It is one of Gear’s only political works, despite his WW2 service and a stint as a ‘Monuments Man’.
It took until 1960 for the Royal Academy to accept Gear’s works into their summer exhibition. ‘My work has a reputation of being rather modern,’ a surprised Gear had said upon hearing the news. This exhibition, exploding with pieces made well ahead of their time, confirms it. (Rachael Cloughton)
PREVIEW PAINTING, SCULPTURE & FILM ANOTHER MINIMALISM: ART AFTER CALIFORNIA LIGHT AND SPACE Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 14 Nov–Sun 21 Feb
The Californian Light and Space movement was a school of art which existed in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s described by Melissa E Feldman, the guest curator of this new group show at the Fruitmarket, as being ‘the West Coast version of the more famous New York Minimalism,’ although this show concerns itself with contemporary descendants of Light and Space. Feldman describes Light and Space as a
little-known regional movement, but says that its influence is growing. ‘Ann Veronica Janssens’ room of coloured mist created by a large yellow star of light alters your visual perception of space in a way that’s similar to that found in the work of leading Light and Space artists such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin,’ she says, describing the artists in her show. ‘James Wellings’ photographs of Philip Johnson’s glass house treat the structure as a new lens on reality in a way that’s related to Larry’s Bell’s tinted glass cubes. All the artists stage their works almost as perceptual experiments for viewers to test out. They can offer viewers willing to slow down and spend the time a heightened experience of time, light, and space.’ (David Pollock)
K R A L C H T U R
REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY & PRINTS THOMAS DEMAND: DAILY SHOW Common Guild, Glasgow, until Sun 13 Dec ●●●●●
On the face of it, Thomas Demand’s practice might seem rigid, uncompromising even: the artist photographs maquette-like recreations of everyday scenes that appear uncannily realistic and sterilely hollow. But as Daily Show proves, spending time with his work is immensely rewarding. Demand has found ways to build upon his art-
making formula without jeopardising the directness of his style. For his show at the Common Guild, he has produced ingenious wallpaper that tests the parameters of his practice. At first glance the wallpaper appears quite commonplace, but after a short time the lines seem a little too crisp, the shadows a touch too dense. Demand has subjected the making of the gallery wallpaper to the same convoluted rules he uses to make his photographs that hang in the space. The wallpaper is both real and false –shadows and lines are printed onto the paper, but a second real layer of shadows cast by the gallery’s architecture complicate the illusion making it almost impossible to tell where reality and fiction begin and end. The effect is quite overwhelming: not only is the authenticity of photography called into question, but the physical world that surrounds us too. (Laura Campbell)
5 Nov 2015–4 Feb 2016 THE LIST 123