Reviews
PAINTING
LUCY STEIN AND JO ROBERTSON - BLOOD’N’FEATHERS
Collective Gallery. Edinburgh, until Sat 15 Apr .0
Blood’n'Feathers us not only the name of the recent Glasgow School of Art double act. but a ‘phulosophy', we are told un the gallery text. a blood and tears manifesto that hopes to bridle 'spoult brat /ou de vuvre and Niel/schuan nuhulusm' It's an art school thung. And these canvases by Lucy Stein and Jo Robertson are dark indeed. muddy even That said. creating out of and marketing teenage angst us not new or interesting, of course. and nenher us doung ut tongue in cheek wuth a paint brush un your hand — the ultimate banal get but clause.
‘Rescue Remedy (muddle class psychodramai' (pictured) by Lucy Stein does offer somethung that almost transcends the sum of its popping expressuonust parts. A figure stands in an apocalyptic landscape in a pose reminiscent of the nuude un Erich Heckel's “Day of Glass'. 1913. The angular and awkward German Expressionist composition becomes a paean to panic attacks, mineral water and homeopathic quack medicine. It us pithy and drips wuth desperation ~ the serious attempt to counter depressuon wuth flower extracts rather than valium or gun has a certain pathetic poetry. Other drawungs and collaged canvases by Jo Stein continue the visual durge. Kewpue doll heads and torn fashion magazune pages cover the (intentionally) uninspiring blocks of unmixed paint.
Blood 'n'Feathers' brand of pseudo cathartic art therapy quI also be on show at this year's Beck's Futures at 75 Trongate (an offsite protect (or the CCA and part of Glasgow International 2006). (Alexander Kennedy)
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Rescue Remedy (Middle Class Psychodrama) by Lucy Stein
PAINTING SIMON FAITI-IFULI. - ICE BLINK Stills, Edinburgh, until 14 May 0..
Last November artist Sumon Fauthlull created his own Grand Tour. Perhaps the grandest. :u trip to Antarctica. He spent two months at the bottom of the world. in a land strewn wuth bodies; of berries iu'Vl in a time zone corrupted by relentless daylight. Sketching drawungs on bus palm pilot and sending them out to subscribers of bus dauly ‘Antarctuca Duspatches'. the work was displayed at CCA. heralding the return of the explorer. Perhaps it was too soon a homecomung, sunce the work that Fauthtull hadn't yrvt assembled. but now shows at Stulls as part of the second Antarctica unstalment, is greatly llltt')r(>~.'(‘:ft' Extreme tourusm wuth bonus aesthetics thus venture might well be. but his new film :nstallatuons are beautifully hypnotic. On the boat to Antarctica. Faulhtull filmed the view from ()l utsude his cabin porthole. The circular glass acquires the quality of an ever-watchful eye. capturing this; otherworldly environment in a seguence of haunting transutuons. But surprisingly. there us something distinctly unromantuc about the whole trip. A vuSut to an abandoned whaling statuon, inhabited only by reindeer and dangerous. untorgettably hideous seals. us austere documentary. There are no wustlully sublime Or daring feats of endurance to be found amidst the trups through gIaCuers and RAF naval bases, Instead. Fauthfull adeptly concerns himself wuth gludung between the mediums of drawmg. photography and film. allowing the show to unlurl unto a grand Journal. replete With all the technological innovations of a well-heeled blog. Despite the boyhood-fantasy verve. Faithfull's diverse methods of documentation reveal a prescient environmentalism wuth laconic wut and wonder.
(lsla Leaver-Yap)
scuuerunu uNs'uAi u Al uoN ANT u (WM u uNt. PAUL CARTER - 12XU
The Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 2 April 0...
With instructions on how to build a ‘Satellite of Love' using a car battery, a thermal survival blanket, Walkman, CB radio and antenna, 12XU invites visitors to reinvestigate the fleeting and alluring world induced by the lyrics, images and associations of a particular range of musicians, including Lou Reed, David Bowie, the Smiths. the Cure and the Smashing Pumpkins.
The ‘title track‘ is an expressive rather than practical drum kit, each drum bearing a figure to propose ‘I too love you'. Each drum is back- lit to illuminate the smoke-laden atmosphere and mingle with the ever present rock soundtrack. ‘Apollo’ is a tight weave of amplifiers and speakers, cut and weeping pink light from internal neon bulbs, again spelling out the title. Apollo - carrier of the tyre and plectrum, the dispeller, so often conflated with the Gods of Sun and Moon, and debauched in his love and conquest over the nymphs. The work invokes this and, of course, the Hammersmith Apollo. Nearby, a poster reads: ‘Sleeping is Giving in’, but then, acceding to the
Visual Art
Sleeping is Giving In by Paul Carter
melancholy tone of the exhibition, retracts: ‘Here’s the sun it‘s alright‘.
I2XU continues Carter's exploration of the space between the domestic mundane and the mythic, but (supported as it is by hand-finished posters and a hand-made Suburban Guerrilla guidebook) seems also to stage a departure, from orchestrated artistic practices to a much more intimate engagement with a broadly familiar range of representations. That it is so pleasurable to conspire with these representations and procreate the promise of transcendence, love and completion, here seems alternately empowering and imperious, constantly deferring one‘s desires. As the Pumpkins scream: ‘A secret star that cannot shine over to you . . . and in your sad machines you‘ll forever stay, burning up in speed, lost inside the dreams. of teen machines.‘
Speakers silently waiting in a darkened room have light shining through cuts in their anterior faces, reading: ‘L.N.I.D.T.S.L.M.‘ It is a peculiarly stirring and alienating discourse — supplemented as it is by smoke, lights and drama — which suffuses emotive stimulants with distant murmurings and vague assertions about Love and Revolution. (James Clegg)
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Poifi by Simon Falthfu
2’2’)‘, THE LIST 95
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