festival VISUAL ART For more info go to LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
LUCY SKAER: THE GREEN MAN A new era of myths and and rituals awaits in major new show
Open house is very much de rigeur in this extensive new show for Edinburgh Art Festival led by Lucy Skaer. And a very nice house it is too, as Skaer invites other artists in to what might well be an epic house-warming, such is the extent of their contributions to Skaer’s manufactured open-plan environment here. With Fiona Connor, Haneline Visnes, Will Holder, input from 20th-century American novelist Hilda Doolittle, aka H.D., and – as one half of Nashashibi/Skaer – Rosalind Nashashibi all taking part, the result in the downstairs white gallery, at least, looks part trophy room, with assorted archaic hunting horns hung on the wall. Beneath them, oversize bronze, wood and copper constructions are laid out on the l oor in formation like a forensically excavated crime scene; such a pick and mix from the natural world keeps everything in its place while i nding a place for everything. The works take in the full expanse of the Talbot Rice, including hitherto unexplored areas. Laid out as such they resemble giant model kits waiting to be pieced together. Upstairs, customised stage-set models or toy theatres await plot devices before being similarly scaled up.
Also upstairs, Nashashibi/Skaer’s i lm, ‘Why Are You Angry?’, models its images of Tahitian women on Paul Gauguin’s 1896 painting of the same name, remaking and remodelling a work originally painted in the throes of women in New Zealand i rst being given the vote with an even more vigorous sense of emancipation.
The combination of works and their arrangement in the space suggests a new era of myths and rituals in waiting. Which realm it leads to next is up in the air. (Neil Cooper) ■ Talbot Rice Gallery, until 6 Oct, free ●●●●●
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15–27 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 93