ART REVIEW
Demarco European Art Foundation
"Kirk
When it comes to staying power, Demarco’s has certainly been well-endowed. Talk of closure is frequent, but the feisty outfit - the Demarco European Art Foundation as it is formally known —- just bashes on. The quality of work is sometimes lousy, but this year the venue more than holds it own.
This former school is a labyrinthine space where curiosity to explore every room is vital for finding the various gems and lesser gems stashed away. Lisa Castagner’s video of an elevator ride and the interior decor of a high-rise is by turns banal and harrowing — featuring wood-chip wallpaper, endless stairs and a soundtrack of doors opening and closing. The relentlessness is trying but induces obsessive viewing.
Likewise Uta Kogelsberger addresses vertical living. Rising from the floor are slender columns, each carefully covered with miniature-scale photographs of high-rise
Blast from the past: art happening in the 705 in Germany caught on film by Richard Demarco
tower blocks. Net curtains prevail and, if you could, you would twitch them.
Further on, Elena Beelaerts’ soft focus slide/video installation is a succession of seascape images. Made for the 1998 Dubrovnik Festival, the floating/sinking metaphor is played out to illuminate Croatia’s precarious recent history. Moving on from the political to the personal, Kerrie Reid, Lisa Fleming and Caroline Kerr deliver Sympathy Blow Jobs. Combining images of flesh and text, here the thrills and spills of the one- night stand are put under the spotlight.
In this running buffet of an exhibition, archive photographs from the 70s are the intriguing bite-size morsels. Taken by venue founder, Richard Demarco, as he roved Europe on the lookout for happenings and encounters with the legendary artist Joseph Beuys, they are atmospheric blasts of mini-skirts and crews of people hanging out in studios. Dubbed ’granddaddy’ by his followers, Demarco has certainly got around and continues to hold his eccentric own.
(Susanna Beaumont) at Demarco European Art Foundation (Venue 22,) 55 7 0707, until Sun 30 Aug, daily 70 30am—6pm.
Off the block: one of Carl Andre's configurations at Inverleith House
ART REVIEW
wood, stone or metal is also partly Inspired by the fact that we hurld our world wrth such materials and hence they fall Wrthrn evenone's expenence (the same Drumfrresshrre stone was used to burld Glasgow's Kelvrngrove Museum and Edrnburgh's Natronai Portrait Gallery) No stone block :s promoted over another, there rs no given vrewpornt or focus to drstract from the whole
On paper thrs exhrbrtron may sound cold. The blocks are lard out by hand, Judged by Andres eye and on a scale that is tangrble and human Add to this the beauty of imperfectron, w:th the
”Carl Andre See review. The krng of
until 30 Aug, daily 70am—5pm.
.3;
Carl Andre
was the Carl Andre’s first solo show in Scotland is a highlight of this year’s Festrval. The artist has placed 288 blocks of red Scottish sandstone drrectly on to the floor of Inverleith House In twelve 'isohedra’ groops, each of 24 blocks. The key to Andre’s work was his realisation in 1960 that carvrng monolithic timbers, gathered from a
82 THE “81’ 27 Aug—10 Sep 1998
wasteland of New York's SoHo drstrrct, added nothrng to their sculptural quality. Andre has srnce found hrmself courted by controversy. Hrs arrangement of frre blocks, Equrvalent VIII caused an outcry when drsplayed at London’s Tate in 1976 and, more than twenty years on, he is strll loyal to thrs approach. Here, m various configurations, he has arranged prnkrsh sandstone, fresh from Gatelaw quarry In Dumfriesshire,
Andre’s use of unadulterated units of
veins of black and whrte runnrng through each block, and you feel that Andre has managed to capture the minute.
lnitrally, rt rs easy to be sceptical about the relevance of Andre's work to our day and age, but it has a unrversalrty. By av0iding the tangles of language and theory, he keeps playrng the endgame of modernism wrth an understatement that speaks louder than words. (erlram Srlki m For details, see Hit list, right
minimalism and master brick layer gets to grrps with blocks of red Dumfriesshii'e sandstone. While rn the Botanic’s ’space in the rockery,’ the Caledonian Hall, Melissa Kretschmer has created a reflective construction of tar and glass. Royal Botanic Garden, 248 2943 until Sun 4 Oct, daily lO—Spm.
Family Credit Families and their everyday dysfunctions get coverage inshow by an extended family of artrsts. Collective Gallery (Venue 80) 220 726, until 72 Sep, Tue—Sat Ham—5.30pm.
Stanislav Kolibal Interrogating construction and deconstruction, is Czech artist Kolibal now getting greater coverage in the West thanks to the drawrng back of the Iron Curtarn. Stanislav Kolibal, Edinburgh College Of Art (Venue 73) 227 6032,
:\r
Hooded. Bared The 'not wavrng but Just breathing' collaboratrve duo, Smrth/Stewart explore flesh and a host of oral ac'trvrtres In a show of vrdeo works Friiitinarkt‘?! Gallery, 225 2383, until IS Sep, Mon~Sat 10am 6pm, Sun noon~5pm
Mona Hatoum She swallowed a camera to frlm her slrmy, labynnthrne insrdes. She collects strands of her own harr to make necklaces. Hatoum's work entices and horrrfres, ieyrles and rntrrgues and rs a must. Mona Hatoum, National Gallery Of Modern Art (Venue 66) 624 6200, until 25 Oct, Mon ‘Sat 70am-6pm, Sun 2 Spin [2 50 ([7 50,)
Richard Prince Has the bad boy grown up? The US artist whose shock tactics more than tickle the Amenc an dream shows new work. Stills Gallery (Venue 94) 622 6200, until 26 Sep, Tue—Sat 70am—8pm, Sun —/Vlon noon-Spin.