Festival VISUAL ART
For more info go to LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
HITLIST THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
E L S S E O R S U K R A M
✽ Mostly West: Franz West and Artist Collaborations Fascinating exhibition
full of collaborations with some of the most compelling modern artists of our time in this wonderland of a show. See review, left. Inverleith House, 248 2971, until 1 Sep (not Mon), free.
✽ Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man Extraordinary Edinburgh
International Festival show that fuses art and medical science, highlighting how Leonardo’s work achieved astonishing scientific accuracy. See preview, page 90. The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, 473 2000, until 10 Nov, £6.25 (£5.70).
✽ Witches and Wicked Bodies Diverse collection of more than 80 works exploring
witchcraft as well as gender, age, beauty, sexuality and death as portrayed by artists over the past 500 years. See review, page 88. Modern Two, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 624 6200, until 3 Nov, £7 (£5).
✽ Michael Nyman A series of ten remakes of Dziga Vertov’s pioneering 1929 film Man With a Movie Camera makes up the installation that forms Nyman’s first ever exhibition in Scotland. See preview, page 90. Summerhall, 560 1590, until 31 Aug, free.
✽ Rachel Maclean: I HEART SCOTLAND Solo exhibition by the
Glasgow-based artist featuring a new video and series of screenprints exploring national identity in the context of next year’s Scottish independence referendum. Edinburgh Printmakers, 557 2479, until 7 Sep (not Mon), free.
✽ Gregor Schneider: Süßer Duft Edinburgh 2013 Installation by the controversial German artist in three rooms of the basement of Summerhall – expect a powerful, intense and challenging piece of work that is open only to those aged 18 and over. Summerhall, 560 1590, until Sat 31 Aug, free.
8–15 Aug 2013 THE LIST FESTIVAL 87
T S E W Z N A R F D N A E L Y E R M L E S N A ©
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R E V O H C L O W L E A H C M I
MOSTLY WEST First exhibition by the late Franz West of his collaborations with other leading visual artists
A tribute that wasn’t meant to be, Mostly West was conceived in 2011, before the Austrian artist Franz West died last year. In its finished form it feels not so much like the high-concept 30-year retrospective that it is, as a fusillade of commemorations in the form of ideas. Rather than a eulogy or an inscription in a book, it’s as if some of the most compelling modern artists of our time have chosen to pay their respects by allowing their legacies to intertwine with West’s.
Numerous works are memorable, including the simple Every, little made with Douglas Gordon, a pair of usable divan chairs under the comfort-deadening stencilled motto ‘Every time you think of me, we die, a little’, and the very amusing Essenz with Heimo Zobernig, ten white chairs assembled in prime position to view
a plain white box. Spiegel in Kabine mit Passtücken is a conceptual minefield, four apparently for-use abstract clubs placed outside an enclosed white cube whose interior walls are plastered with the local newspaper. There’s a room of fantastical abstract sculptures and wall decoration, all created with Anselm Reyle, and a simple, impenetrable bag of coal presented with a soft sheet of red fabric, a collaboration with Jannis Kounellis. The brilliant Talk Without Words (Marina Faust) and the amusing Bateau Imaginaire (also with Zobernig) provide further fascination in this wonderland of a show. (David Pollock)
Inverleith House, 248 2971, until 22 Sep, free. ●●●●●