Art
FESTIVAL TIMES:
THE ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL AND HARLEY WS AWARD Contemporary photographic practice up close 000
The Archibald Campbell and Harley WS Award is always something of a treat, a snapshot of the current state of Scottish photography. Alexander and Susan Maris open the show with excerpts from their Momenta series. These small images - long exposures shot from the back of a speeding motorbike - are all eddies and swirls of grey mist, equal parts frenzied motion and rural calm. A glimpse of a stag plays on traditional representations of the Scottish landscape, a theme continued in 00:00:00, two images capturing the moment of anticipation before a mountain climb.
Opposite, Claudine Hartzel is playing a very different game. Love in Ruins sees Hartzel digitally manipulating whole
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Alexander and Susan Maris' Momenta series
galaxies, creating an alternative zodiac of whispered conversations, tracing powerful but uncertain little words like ‘But‘ and ‘Ouch’ across the stars. James Thornhill edges further still from photography proper, engaging with the award itself in the process. He has defaced the ceiling with smoke graffiti that reads, ‘JT 4 M8 4 CH 4 LL 4 AM + SM', uniting the artists against the competition. Write/Protect/Error - Keys to the World is another stab at authority, with a set of lock picks made from hacksaw blades, the title an allusion to computer hacking.
This twisty thinking is lacking in Lucy Levine’s Come and be My Baby, a set of crap photographs of folk having a crap time in a crap nightclub. Feel free to throw at them ideas about voyeurism, or class, or the double subversion of Levine‘s point‘n'click technique. Unfortunately, this stuff is so slight that those big thoughts will slip right off the surface.
And so to Martin Boyce. He‘s still deep in conversation with modernist design history. Disappear Here is a set of monochrome digital images full of text and Saul Bass-style grids. There are ghostly portraits too, of modernist objects made flesh by morphing and manipulation. These are something of a counterpoint to Boyce's wider practice, less direct
and more allusive than his installation work.
Competition shows are bound to be something of a mixed bag but, as in previous years, the real winner here is contemporary photographic practice, shown here to be in fine fettle. (Jack Mottram)
I Stills, 622 6200. until Sep 20. free.
PHOTOGRAPHY AIRSIDE: JANE BRETTLE
Challenging viewer’s perceptions COO
AirSide: the area of an airport usually out of bounds to the public. ‘where access is not a matter of course'. This is an interesting description of a show honouring the achievements of professonal women. But on further inspection, it is a rather bland collection. where ‘profeSSional' has been interpreted in a very speCific way. Here. army officers rub shoulders with surgeons; and psychologists mingle With chief executives. all similarly posmoned in their offices or workspaces. None is dressed in any kind of uniform. so the exhibition becomes a kind of game to “guess the occupation'. and in dorng so. challenges the vrewer's preconceptions.
Echoing the ‘honorific painted pOrtrait'. Jane Brettle's photographs are not visually stunning and can be rather repetitive, but they do raise some interesting questions. Many of the works feature sculptures 0r paintings. yet very few involve people connected With the arts 0r humanities. This may be because Brettle is consCiously trying to mod any stereotypical associations between women and the arts. but it also suggests that females in such profeSSions are not pushing the boundaries in the same way as they are busmess. Unfortunately. the pictures themselves remain Silent on deeper subjects. Beyond face value. they reveal very little. lRachaeI Street)
I Crty Art Centre. 529 3993. until 27 Sep. free.
Sumita Sinha, Architect
84 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 7—1.1 Aug 2003
PAINTING
HIGH SOCIETY: THE LIFE AND ART
(1 803-1 878) Living the high life 0...
While the Tolpuddle Martyrs were being lllélr(lll(}(l ()ff tr) Australia and Dickens was depicting the miseries of the industrial poor. all was well in the world of Sir Francis Grant. He was born into Britain’s ruling nobility in Whit. ‘.'.’llllt7 the landed gentry rested solidly in their estates. resoluter ignoring the uncomfortable rumblings from below. lradition and heritage flowed along lines of power as naturally as the fine claret poured down the chinless 'xroiiders‘ necks And this is the w0rld that Grant sought to reflect and preserve. as if by painting. it COuId be saved from change.
LiVing in Scotland and England. Brant painted portraits of his family. friends. hunting scenes and latterly. the most important men of the day — Disraeli and Palmerston ()ne of the figures gadding about the Duke of Buccleuch's estate in pursuit of a fox. Red Crr ss Knight. is (lf:f;(;lll,(:fl by a conter'nporary as ‘a Jovial red. or rather at times purple faced bon yivant. four or five bottle man.‘ You get the picture.
Women and horses — ‘those two best products of England [Vanity Fair. 1871'] — are lavished With great care and the soft texture of a demure cheek or the SIlk‘,’ coat of a prime filly. rendered With delicate skill. It you '.'rant to inhale a good. musty whiff of Victorian high society. there c0uldn't be a finer place to do so. iRuth Hedges;
I National POrtrart Gallery, 624 (5200. until 7-! Sep, 511 (C3): under 723 free.
Mrs Markham, 1 857
DAVID SHERRY Quirky commentary on the human condition 0...
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Sun's Fucked
SIN/{til [)7)‘, ( llt) /lllt.‘/‘.”l ".'. r ‘t‘ ‘.t ’t .“ f‘Sherr‘, ?;lll‘.’lll(l lH'Hdltlf, pleural perfection. and preparing ’r.',‘l three lll<)lllllf; to ritualisticall. .ippi, for iohs he doesn't ~.'.'ant ln far I. he has no .‘.’lf;ll of gainful e'iiplo,viient of any sort. lle (llllll’lllilll‘. .in exposure of da. t’r 'lrl, proceuxeu. and the dearlpan T,(7ll(;ll'.ll‘:‘,‘. he brings to the .'.Ir,rl« re illllllll‘, ll‘. coniir, .alue.
(Er/en that an axe-rage person", intestine 'neasure‘. ten llll‘ll‘:', l-" length, ll“) luck, that Sheri, uni, chose to represent llre Anus ola Very l arge l’ers‘ori, a title .'.’lill,ll cut out of an enormous red ring pasted to the floor spanning the breadth of the gallery. l ess accessible. a lone drawing ’l‘:lr‘/.“. a fishing rod spouting a houguet of horns. and a seemineg unrelated collage presents a chiriipan/ee threatened by extinction and a random proclamation of the c-Xistence of a space lift ll‘ the Nevada desert.
Although there if, a guirkine'r. Within the ’2[) pieces. Sherry”. personality and lihysical presence lend the other works a further degree of sophistication. lMattherr Hearni I Collective Gallery. 220 72M). until 7 Sep. lr'ee.