Visual Art
PAINTING DRAWING After Eating Bad Horsemeat PETER HOWSON — ’ ANDREW: PORTRAIT OF A ' SAINT “ ~ ‘ City Arts Centre, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 Mar 00
Peter Howson’s recent works have carried a strong religious theme. This exhibition is evidence of that. featuring as it does a large number of paintings. drawings and sketches. all dedicated to the Scottish patron saint. Howson represents the religiously significant figure of Saint Andrew in his signature bold. comic book style — a large painting of the saint and cross as centrepiece to the exhibition.
The large selection of works are evidence of his obsession with subject and technique. the image of the culturally historical figure — neither on or off the cross — resonates throughout the gallery in the number of the works that repeat the same scene in various renderings. The exhibition goes some way to addressing the perceived ignorance toward the Scottish patron saint. but the faded traditions of religious painting prove detrimental to the work.
Howson's ideals and beliefs seem to be clouded by consumerism in an exhibition that sits on a knife-edge between religious obsession and the
Hammond dances on the face of the figurative in comodification of religious "" “‘3 ‘Sculptures with their heads kicked in’ (stoneware iconography. (Steven Cairns) PAINTINGS. SCULPTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY ceramic), where the material has been moved about by CHARLIE HAMMOND the artists feet. The faces that emerge bear the deep Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow, until Sat 3 Mar .... scars of what appear to be welly boot prints. There Is a v sideways nod towards the idea of the artist as primitive There is both an undeniable sense of conceptual in these totemic masks, as well as in the photograph precision and a wicked sense of humour informing the beside them, where two dandified artists (Hammond work of Charlie Hammond at Sorcha Dallas. The and Nick Evans) sit in Hepworth’s studio at St Ives. selection of work on display bears the marks of its Enamel paint masks the faces, adding colour and making - but not in the po-faced way that some artists nonsense to the image. approach the ineffable realm of ‘process’. These The paintings that appear with these works continue sculptures, paintings and photographs are unified with this critique of the modern primitive, with grimacing a cynical and wry glance at the mythical idea of ‘the faces and pantomime-style horses emerging from the artist at work’; supposedly gestural marks that some shallow muddy puddle of the canvas’s surface. The read as royal roads into the soul are nothing more than ‘Booted Stalagmite and Stalactite’ sculptures stick up the skids and scrapes of a drill-bit on a canvas, or the through the floor and ceiling like two rude middle toe or heal of a big boot in mud (clay). fingers. (Alexander Kennedy)
DRAWING. SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION GROUP SHOW: HOT ROCK Mike test (head of Goya) Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Feb 000 by Robert Longo
Seven international artists question the cultural value of the very recent past and an always uncertain future in Hot Rock at the Transmission. The show brings together work by Monika Grzymala. Andreas Hofer. Brian Jungen. Robert Longo. Dorit Margreiter. Scott Myles and Rosha Yaghmai. in an exhibition that veers towards the bleak. This is not a criticism of the quality of the work, but a nod to the dark psychic cloud that hovers over the show.
If uncertainty can be characterised as ‘greyness‘. neither black nor white. then most of the work takes this anti-colour symbolism to heart. The world and history become a flat Beckettian stage set. with useless objects cluttering up the place. lvlyles' ‘On Display and Disguise' (bronze. steal. wood. paint) plays with material and our perception of it. like an analytic cubist collage that has been broken down into its constituent parts. Grzymala's ‘Swoosh‘ (black and white paper tape) hugs the wall at the window and door, presenting life outside as a barren skyscape. a frame from a graphic novel bearing no traces of signification.
There is also an acknowledgment of the edginess and daily threat of violence and destruction in some of the work. with Jungen’s carved baseball bats or ‘Talking Sticks‘ balanced against the wall, waiting to be wielded and ‘do the talking' when words fail. and a pop-poster rendition of a nuclear mushroom by Margreiter, adding a mock—shock and slightly ironic edge to the show, a comic kick up the backside that still hurts. (Alexander Kennedy)
92 THE LIST if) Feb—l Mar 2007