VISUAL ART | PREVIEWS & REVIEWS R E V I E W
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GROUP SHOW PINE’S EYE Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, currently closed due to COVID-19 virus lllll
Although there are no little boys made of wood to be found, Pinocchio (literal translation: pine kernel, pine’s eye) is the guiding spirit of this ambitious group show curated by Talbot Rice’s James Clegg. The seed was planted when Rachel Maclean’s Venice Biennale work was being shown at the gallery and has grown into a sprawling project featuring a dozen artists from around the world. At its heart is a series of conversations about the relationship between human
beings and the natural world, but Pine’s Eye wears its environmentalism lightly. A playful spirit and a deliberate attempt to find viewpoints outside the mainstream give it freshness and a certain generosity of spirit. Visitors to the show walk straight into a circle of masks made by the Kwakwaka’wakw people of the Pacific Northwest; whether they’re welcoming us or warding us off, we’re not sure.
This first room also includes masks by the late Kwakwaka’wakw chief (and artist) Beau Dick, wall paintings and felt sculptures by Chilean artist Johanna Unzueta,
and Taryn Simon’s photographs of the flower arrangements present at the signings of treaties and trade agreements, silent witnesses to the machinations of power. The show is rich in references to folk art: Kevin Moody’s unsettling paintings, which confront us at various points throughout; drawings by the late Ana Mendieta; Haegue Yang’s installation of a group of figures which channel folkloric influences with a postmodern vibe. Austrian artist Lois Weinberger practises a kind of guerrilla gardening, sowing weeds and fungi spores into the urban environment in chaotic explosions of life. And Glasgow-based Torsten Lauschmann, developing ideas first seen at the last Glasgow International, creates a ‘forest’ made from NHS walking aids, some of which come to life as we walk among them in an unsettling dance macabre. These works don’t address a theme so much as coalesce around it, but with work of this quality, no one is likely to complain. (Susan Mansfield)
102 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2020