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DESIGN The Oxo/Peugeot Design Awards 2000 ***
’The Turner Prize of the design wor/d’
Hector Serrano's Super Patata light
We’ve come a long way from teak furniture and swirly carpets. Ever since Habitat open its doors in 1964, our desire for well-designed, contemporary objects for the home has become all consuming.
Recognising and rewarding the current trends in design, the Oxo/Peugeot Design Awards stops off in Edinburgh as part of a nationwide tour. Featuring prototypes of the eleven finalists and the overall winner, viewers can also take a peek at the S4 shortlisted entries adorning the gallery walls. Collecting the coveted award is Hector Serrano’s Super Patata, a flexible and fun, salt-filled, balloon-shaped latex light. Tavs Jorgensen's U Cup ensures that unsightly spills are a thing of the past with his innovative cup which fits snugly into a raised point of the saucer. And Gusto Design Studio's Stick/ebook Shelves offers an original way to display your books as discreet metal combs grip the pages.
But if you disagree with the judges’ selection, a 'people’s poll' allows you to vote for your favourite.
(Helen Monaghan)
I The Oxo/Peugeot Design Awards 2000, Nexus Galleries, 477 4524, until 37 Aug, Mon—Sat 70am—6pm. Free.
VIDEO INSTALLATION
Shirin Neshat **** Powerful video works
Iranian-born Shirin Neshat‘s two video works, Turbulent and Soliloquy, both take the form of two large opposing, interacting projections. The former has a male singer, clad in white performing to an audience of his peers facing a woman dressed in black, who, after the applause for the first song dies down performs an impossible, echo-laden chorus of fractured loops to an empty auditorium. This is a tense examination of opposites, black and white, male and female, lent extra resonance when we learn that female
PAINTING
Salvador Dali's Optical Illusions int:
Dali ’5 double images
Whatever your views on Dali, over-rated assembler of Freudian flim-flam or genius exposer of the subconscious, this exhibition is a rag bag of lesser
works.
The premise, to explore the artist's fascination with optical trickery, perspective and foreshortening, is intriguing. The fact that these concerns are explicit in most of the paintings considered masterpieces means that concentrating on works that take illusions as a starting point rather than a means to an end, has the result of rendering Dali as a directionless footnote to Surrealist practice. This is further compounded by the odd curatorial tactic of leading the visitor through paintings that can only be described as weak examples before getting to often overlooked gems like the stunning, disorientating series of stereoscopic
paintings.
In the end, what ought to have been a fresh take on the work of one of the 20th century’s most feted artists will have leave fans nonplussed and confirm the suspicions of detractors. (Jack Mottram) I Salvador Dali ’5 Optical Illusions, Dean Gallery (Venue 69) 624 6200, until 7 Oct, Mon-Sat 70am—5pm; Sun noon-5pm. £4 (£3); joint with Klee [6 (£4.50).
vocal performance is outlawed by Shi’ite Muslim edicts.
Upstairs, the second diptych is less confrontational. Loosely narrative scenes from America, where Neshat is based, interlinking and echoing scenes played out in her native country, this time parallels are drawn between two possible lives of the female character who graces both screens. Both works are powerful and affecting, sparking off a huge number of possible responses, without ever dictating a sole interpretation. (Jack Mottram)
I Shirin Neshat, Fruitmarket Gallery, 225 2383, 5 Aug-23 Sep, Mon—Sat 7 7am-8.30pm,' Sun noon—8.30pm. Free.
GROUP snow Mounted 2 the
Artists respond to the modern world
'auld drawers /2 Full or Shire
The first thing to hit you on entering the exhibition at Mounted 2 is the
art IGNIVII
sense of a childlike fairground grotesque. Emma Bowen’s plastic bagged-up and suffocating teddies alongside Steff Norwood's fizzy drink bottle teeth seem to come straight to the gallery from Willy Wonka's factory.
The exhibition continues with childhood reverie and fantasy reworked into a more disillusioned and cynical adulthood - the result is a sweetly bitter 'cartoon-art’. You wake up, go to work, go to bed; you are born, you toil, you die. These young Edinburgh-based artists are at once disenchanted and enamoured with the daily grind of modern life. Tormented souls in a modern world perhaps? But then at least they are having a laugh. (Claire Mitchell)
I Mounted 2, 2 Howe Street, 220 3727, until 37 Aug, daily noon-70pm. Free.
FILM WORKS
UNLV Filmmakers' Showcase it
For American eyes only
Eight films, eight slices of pulped-up narrative, make up the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Filmmakers' Showcase.
Out of all of these eight films, the most enjoyable is Vincent Carmela’s tragic-comic tale Midlife At 29, which documents the day-to-day white trash existence of anti-hero Travis Cromwell. Less convincing is Benjamin Purvis’ freakishly garish The Devil And Butterscotch Gaye - a strange blend of quasi-gothic morality tale, fairytale montage and Sesame Street. The films on show are surely a mixed bag — some are truly amusing, some are annoyingly kooky and some are impenetrany weird.
Being the only non-American in the audience, I cannot help but feel that that my nationality was the main
Madonna Of Port Uigat 1949
reason behind my missing the point. That’s good old reserved British humour for you. (Claire Mitchell)
I UNLV Filmmakers’ Showcase, Randolph Studios, Institute Francais d’Ecosse (Venue 55) 225 5366, until 78 Aug, 72.30-2. 75pm; 20—28 Aug, 2.45pm. £5 (£4).
MIXED MEDIA
Festival Exhibition Of Contemporary Art And Design ***
An assortment of affordable artworks
Escape the furore of the Festival with a quick side step to Stockbridge’s Patriothall Gallery where you will find an enclave of eclectic artwork.
Housed in an old bakery building, the studios combine artists’ workspace with exhibition gallery to showcase work produced on the premises. This year's festival exhibition is a selection of work by sixteen artists, which ranges in quality and talent but there exists material to appeal to everyone's palate.
Alan Kirkpatrick’s Shift triptych consists of colour strips that merge and blend to impress on the imagination water, horizon and sky. Ian Healy’s Portrait Of A Young Woman is intriguineg reminiscent of Roald Dahl’s bald witches with crackle glaze skulls. Trude Blow’s montages are worth closer inspection as are Gerry McGowan’s ethereal colour forms.
This exhibition is a display of accessible and affordable art to begin or augment any aspiring art buyer's collection. (Isabella Weir)
I Festival Exhibition Of Contemporary Art And Design, Pa triotha/l Gallery 225 7289, until 2 Sep, daily noon—6pm. Free.
17—24 Aug 2000 TIIE usr mum euro: 13