list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
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BEATRICE GIBSON: CRIPPLED SYMMETRIES Films inspired by 1975 novel ●●●●●
KWANG YOUNG CHUN: AGGREGATIONS Meticulously crafted paper art from Korea ●●●●● RECIPROCITI Thought-provoking take on the role of money ●●●●●
The noise of money is everywhere in the two films by Beatrice Gibson that make up the London-based artist’s show at this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival. ‘F for Fibonacci’ juxtaposes archive footage of a mercurial Karlheinz Stockhausen and images of Wall Street city boys at play with an 11-year-old boy’s computer-generated images of a world owned by a fictional superhero, Mr Money. The newly commissioned ‘Solo for Rich Man’ finds another 11-year-old ruffling wads of dosh and dropping coins with composer Anton Lukoszeveize in a Shoreditch adventure playground.
Both films are inspired by William Gaddis’ 1975 novel, JR, in which an 11-year-old boy creates the world's biggest financial empire with the unwitting help of his school’s resident composer. Gibson’s films pits notions of progressive education, abstract composition and work by Fluxus artist George Maciuna with the real racket going on in the City. In physical terms, such counterpoints suggest
how throwing a sonic spanner in the works can disrupt a mainstream economy. As far as monopolies go, however, kids rool the skool every time. (Neil Cooper) ■ Collective Gallery, 556 1264, until 4 Oct, free.
After 20 years as an abstract expressionist painter, Korean artist Kwang Young Chun changed direction and began to make assemblages from hundreds of triangular packages wrapped in mulberry paper (usually the pages of old Korean books) and tied with mulberry string.
Many of the pieces in this show, his first solo
exhibition in Scotland, are wall mounted, and look like paintings trying to break into three dimensions. Some evoke other-worldly landscapes, using shapes and tones to create the impression of ridged surfaces and craters. Others exhibit a painter’s delight in colour: a sunburst in shades of blue, a jagged rectangle in flame and earth hues. The centrepiece is a huge spikey sphere, like a meteorite, hanging from the ceiling. The immediate impression is one of presence
and scale. On closer inspection, one considers the meticulousness and craft in the process, and the blending of an American painting tradition with a sensibility that is oriental and hand-made. However, after sustained viewing, it starts to feel they are all variations on a theme. To see still more, would be to see more of the same. (Susan Mansfield) ■ Dovecot Gallery, 550 3660, until 26 Sep, free.
A site-specific installation within a busy city centre bank branch, this display by Patrick Stevenson- Keating’s Studio PSK carefully freights consideration of money not as a simple article of currency, but as a means of social interaction and a system which is used to arrange people by their interaction with it. It moves beyond the familiar rich and poor dynamic into other fields. A series of branded posters for the theoretical Reciprociti bank have been designed, advertising insurance for investments devalued by adverse tweets; and savings accounts whose value is linked to the customer’s weight or the hypothetical time / value / location equation. New objects for making digital payments seek to
create a sense of physical context about how much the holder is spending; one is a dial which must be rotated to increase the amount, another an unwieldy balloon system which shows the amount you’re spending in relation to the value of your account. There’s also a fake ATM dispensing personalised notes, a physical suggestion of the sense of individual interaction Stevenson-Keating is proposing in this thought-provoking exhibition. (David Pollock) ■ Royal Bank of Scotland, 142-144 Princes Street, 226 2555, until 31 Aug, free.
REMOTE CENTRES: PERFORMANCES FROM OUTLANDIA Works made on residency in a Highland treehouse ●●●●●
In 2010, an off-site treehouse titled Outlandia was erected in Glen Nevis, designed by artists London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson) and designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects. Artist Jo Joelson described the project as, ‘a hideout, a shelter, a studio, a cabin in the forest, a platform for artists to be in residence and for others to stumble across and wonder about its contents.’ The site has since played host to a variety of residencies,
allowing space for artists to work outside their usual comfort zones. For one week in August 2014, a project called Remote Performances was set up by London Fieldworks in which the site was transformed into a temporary radio station, allowing 20 artists, poets, writers, musicians and the local community space to reflect on their unique surroundings. This installation at Edinburgh College of Art features sound recordings from that project, peppered with other works relating to Outlandia. While the project and the site are both fascinating, it is questionable whether this light, clinical space filled with computer screens really captures the dirty, rugged nature of the site at Glen Nevis, but two projects come close. One is a video by London Fieldworks titled ‘Outlandia Boardwalk’, which films the long wooden walkway leading to Outlandia, crossing the boggy terrain frequented by hill-walking tourists. Similarly, artist Clair Chinnery’s raw installation ‘Generic Hybrid Highland Nest’ is set inside a mock version of the Glen Nevis treehouse itself. Inside is a giant, grubby bird’s nest large enough for a whole person to sleep in. Accompanied by recordings featuring shuffling and trampling noises alongside other quiet sounds, you can begin to imagine the contemplative solitude of the space. (Rosie Lesso) ■ Edinburgh College of Art: Tent Gallery, Evolution House, 651 5800, until 30 Aug, free.
20–31 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 91
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