preview
Beck's New Contemporaries 97
Glasgow: CCA until Sat 31 Jan it as. it at» A sort of Siamese twin bike — it’s joined at the front wheel - covered with newspaper, leans against the wall. A Blue Peter-inspired operations deck made from cardboard and the natty use of plastic tops. A vast white blob which looks like a giant whisked peak of egg white. Beck's New Contemporaries is a running buffet of the ephemeral, banal, heavy and the gutsy. A pick ’n' mix meal which leaves you satisfied if not nutritionally charged.
Criticism has been kicked at the touring show (formerly ET New Contemporaries) and the selectors (including Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing), for choosing just eighteen artists from 1200 applications. A taster of young talent — all the artists are students or just out of college - is what you get. Yes, there is the derivative and the inferior imitation, but if artists can't beg, steal or borrow when
starting out it's a shame. Identity crises aside, the show
delivers.
Frankie Sinclair’s agglomeration of inflated and deflated balloons resembles a mass of jellied spawn. Limp here and taut there, it has a slimy sensuality. Katherine McKee (ex Glasgow School of Art) populates her canvases with dark, fuzzed blobs, reminiscent of bacteria doing overtime when seen through a microscope. Chat show banter gets coverage in Stephen Stephen's multi-video mock-up of leather sofa chit-chat and someone enigmatically called 0 has deep-frozen an
electric socket.
A doodler who requires more than just your standard telephone message pad is Pedro Games. From afar, his doodles gone outsize are drawings of interiors; close up they are a frenzied whirl of blue, green, black and green Bic biro. Grittiness is delivered in Sarah Dobia's
“hr-ante 3 liar and foul
. often seen
Piss Happy: Steve Ouditt's Ralph D. Evader
billboards. None of your soft-sell ads here. On one billboard at the side of a road junction there is a blood streaked post-accident passenger and driver. You get the message.
For the touchy, feely element there are Len Horsey’s bronze Y—fronts laid to rest on a small plinth. Visitors are invited to stroke the fossilised piece of underwear. Seeking companionship of the rubber doll variety is Jemima Brown. On video, she blows up her doll, which has a dress matching her own. In a photograph, Brown and her now inflated doll enjoy the great outdoors. It’s a poignant and weird take on ’need-a-friend syndrome'. A proper piss-take is given in Steve Ouditt’s cartoonesque painting on brown paper. A goofy guy pisses gleefully along the words ’His Piss Stank Like The Sweat Of The Indolent Public Workers . . .’ (Susanna Beaumont)
Correspondences
Edinburgh: Gallery Of Modern Art until Mon 2 Feb
Detail from Gunda Forster's slide installation
Zeitgeist anxiety, on the edge of despair or just plain honesty — however you cut it, the twelve artists (er Berliners and six from Scotland) on show in
84 THE LIST 19 Dec 1997—8 Jan 1998
COrrespOndeiices inhal‘rl ’le'itlf‘if‘.
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what 15 left urisaicl - but tf"--r‘, ff".:’.~ f-- .2 :f-- : : . ' : 2:" :_:.. z' Jacqueline Dranactiw's ‘15-: ‘0 '- .. .
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cut space A souncl t'a-x - - - ' '
country and west-err n "Mb '
likes of PaISy Cline ar‘::
wafts through the l""£l.'."-n\s
ceaseless reminder ti‘ twain. ., . . ,
and hearts bruised A ‘silltt‘lt" insular”. .' . .' in will ‘2 '
an empty room that could arm:
a juggernaut of hopes
An aura of weirdness, marking tier".
as strangely credible, hangs await: ~ . : 8:; Stewart's fibre glass ililillt‘S , r .5 ~ z» baby carrier appears sweet'v ' v- i'f . :~ ;"
On reading the CleII'.‘.", "w ,, _ .x. . Solution Was To Beat .‘..'y Act 1 :1 . ~i: ;:'- --: : : :
To Death, do yOu reabst' t‘t-x ‘1'."1'l‘llf ." t :‘v' -- ‘ i..\'.' :" : .:, '.':t.'-.s
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with deceit ' .=:~: t'.:' M- : :-.
Catching you again, slowly at We tum f-_--u ' : ..'. ~ . ' :' of the throat, are Nina Fischer d'l.) . :wa” i ’f'm . ‘. Maroan El Sani's cliptvrh photographs “ " " : ~.-r 2" 2 2.“, . i'. .. Parents stand by the DUOlSKlt' of {view t'i-- : :-.-. ‘ t u 1".1‘ . : home, built to h0use their {laughter .‘i'icl Spat-71‘: Elma" “
Artbeat
Private views on the art scene. HAVING DILEMMAS OF 3 personal
kind while sitting on the back seat of
l the bus may be common enough but
i in their latest project, Bulkhead are ; going official with Personal
Dilemma. Over 1000 Strathclyde buses are taking part in the project involving three artists ~ Alan Crossan, Anne Hardy and lseult Timmermans — who will be showing photographic work on the bulkhead — the space behind the driver's seat. Hold on tight.
IN LAPLAND, HELL is apparently an underground lake in Arctic Finland
5 where ancient Lapps made sacrifices
to the gods. A thousand years on it’s throwing back its treasures. So says the press release for Hell’s Angels, which more prosaically could be a crucial stop-off for despairing
f Christmas shoppers. A host of artists including Stephen Skrynka, who has
made mirrorball crash helmets and Clara Ursitti, who is offering an
alternative to Old Spice with her
unisex perfume, are selling their wares at 431 Great Western Road,
? Glasgow (0385 720877) until 23
December. FOTOFEIS FOUNDING DIRECTOR
Alasdair Foster is leaving to take up
i a post as director of the Australian Centre For Photography in Sydney.
The top job at Fotofeis — the
biannual Scottish festival of photography — is still up for grabs after being advertised in the national press twice. The Fotofeis board is currently head-hunting a new chief.
THE MODERN INSTITUE which sets
out to promote and initiate art ’ projects, has received a big nod of
approval from the Scottish Arts
Council (SAC). It has been awarded
£8000 for the current financial year, with encouraging noises that funding could continue. The Institute is planning a launch in February with Glasgow artist and Turner Prize nominee Christine Borland's CD of a pre-pubescent boy reading the monster chapter from the classic novel Frankenstein.
THE SAC IS looking for new members for its committees and panels. Keen volunteers should call Denise Gibbons on 0131226 6051 or denise.gibbons.SAC@artsfb.org.uk by 29 January.
Working mother: a detail from lseult Timmermans’ photographic work