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“NATio'N TURNS ITS LONELY EYES TO YOU Market Gallery. Glasgow. until Sat 5 Feb 0000
i r rah 'lfr"‘.l" r fk'll‘l il. ttl l‘lll‘,i(lf‘ exposure for nev. work by recent graduates. lula'lw'f‘. iatwrt ‘;.l".,lll,15'_ )lltff;l‘.(3 group shouzu
lylirrirw lit Elwrrii:i'ia:;sit l"t‘llllf§ ulterior and exterior space. setting columns of plant . i our" .: if lwt .inl .‘."lllt: applied (llltKTll‘, to the gallery wall. all overlayed wrth .zrt: lil'ill‘lllr‘ reil illlt‘ lifilllHlH.lllt?£lll‘.‘.’ll!l(}.(EXDOl'llllOlllfS\Nllll£1COMIEIIHUU iiwr \ minim-.11 rusting a iii-gating eleri‘erll in a tank of ‘.‘.'aler'. the system is . in; that (\lill‘ili uninterpietahle data in the form of amplified clicks. l i‘a'f t it? .r" rrl“.i'<‘l‘l“t?lll toe, Made of fluffy vegetable tat islets. little ;r:t'iing on a '.'.'oo(le.'i frame, her \.-.iorld is populated by 70s the (ire/nasfer edition of Joi of Sex. if you like. Next yin. {hi4 (‘iiat‘u.'.'<:giaii take on Modernism and ‘2 'l l DIY'. Is a J(?l'\, built enclosure. unfinished but l‘r’l‘l w'm: f" sni-ty'xm r ' wins and buildings. Adding time to place. Main ? w lattert‘y 's '\'Vea\.rer' sees two
“~13; " women in an anonymous Scottish landscape. relentlesst jigging on screen to the sound of a loom.
l'liston. looms large in. Stuart McCaffer's curtained room as well. Inside this gloomy Victorian parit‘ur sits a man wrth a stags head. pipe in hand. warming h2mselt at. a zideo tire. On the ‘.'.&lil behind hangs the Landseer landscape from which he has escaped. prom McAfter and Lalferft s a ternate nstrviagraphy of Scotland‘s "elationship with itself, to Blenr‘erhasset's domestic mapping. this show 8 a t'ascu‘ating examination of place and sease. as well as a fine by swan Mccaw some; of emerging artists.
- - Jack lylottrami
rel-N.“ Monarch of the Gle‘n ~
Visual Art
Reviews
ELBOW ROOM
Gallery of Modern Art. Glasgow. until Mon 14 Feb 000. Over eight months, artists Kati Bruce. Anne Elliot, Rachel Mimiec and Janice Sharp worked with women and children supported by Red Road Women's Centre, Glasgow Women‘s Library, Glasgow Women's Aid and Base 75 to explore issues surrounding the violation of women‘s human rights. elbowroom is the result of their collaboration. Shows of this sort tend to fail. Thankfully, this one doesn’t.
Work by women attending Base 75, an organisation that offers support to women involved in prostitution, opens the show. A series of leaflets document actions prompted by a discussion by staff and users of Base 75 services. In one, two women buy strawberry plants, place them in a backstreet. and then document the damage to and disappearance of the plants over time. a simple slice of symbolism inspired by the apparently common excuse used by men seeking sexual services at the weekend — ‘the 8&0 run’. Another pair of women fling spaghetti about on the streets, captured on CCTV. It‘s an action that is both domestic and violent, while commenting on the (in)visibi|ity of domestic violence.
While the women of Base 75 illustrate, Women@P|ay, a group formed at Red Road Women‘s Centre, use art to alter their environment. One piece uses video to document a set of transformative interventions on the Red Road area itself, using play - skipping. ball games, hula-hoops - to both highlight the failing infrastructure of the place they call home, and to reclaim it as their own, positive space.
Other efforts are, admittedly, not so successful, but as a whole elbowroom explores issues surrounding women and violence with such eloquence that one rather hopes that the (mostly anonymous) women involved continue to work together as artists, since their efforts are often a match for work by practicing artists that finds its way into galleries by more conventional means. (Jack Mottram)
SCULPTURE THOMAS WHALEN
Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 6 Mar 0..
Deposition
There's a significant and somewhat incongruous leap between training as a shipwright in Leith at the start of the 1900s and movrng on to assOCiateship of the RSA towards the end of the century. In Thomas Whalen's case. however, the transition seems not only a natural one. but something of a logical next step.
Decamping to Edinburgh College of Art after his initial dOCkyard apprenticesh:p to study sculpture. Whalen simply used the handskills he had developed earlier to ply a piibliclyappreciated strain of craftsmanship of a far more subtle variety. His '.-.rorl<s were to go on to appear in public buildings and architectural schemes.
As Such. they do tend to allow universally graspal‘fle themes to take over, at least if this display is anything to go by. There are the softly-contoiired plaster and smile Curves of ‘Mother and 'Child and ‘Maternity'. quietly proclaiming the Joys of both motherhood and Childhood. 'The Miner' sets a hunched, leaden figure to dig at the four walls of his cramped hanging frame, ‘.’/llll‘: the numerous religi0us works blend a soitably imposmg nature with Whalen's own unique interpretations. ‘Head of Christ' and 'Christ on the Fross' are reverent. /et happily removed from the solemn reality of most religious depictions.
Where Such traditional SUBJECTS loom large, only in the later marble creation 'Clown With Atom Bomb' does Whalen’s satirical sense allow itself free reign, It", camOUflaged throughout if yOu rook closely enough though. Wthll is another reason this small but well-crafted retrospective proves welcome. rDa/id Pollocki
2’. Jane“: Fer, THE LIST 93