Visual Art www.list.co.uklvisualart
REVIEW [:‘3 1‘ \
ECHO AND TRANSCEND Gallery of Modern Art. Glasgow. until Fri 1 Jan 2010 .00
l ', ' r“. l t ‘ H ‘i 1“ ' ‘ o ‘ D l» :w I’. ' ° . t ., ‘i “t t". t ' \i I ' 2‘. ' t' .)t it i ‘ ' t' th'.“ 1. ‘ 'tI‘ i W] ‘ 1' r h ' H i h ‘ i " .~~. =‘1‘twiit'r\:" UT 'CSJ'W' 6 “‘t' .'. "ATS \It tliW'i ".t‘. ' It’ttlit‘. .'.I“.’t' TM"? T't'i“ ‘t‘r'lrl T
\‘L’IIQI‘. .5. ‘rnrg gmtwn ,1“, .‘tiw Univ}; .iitat’“. at t 5".» 'wrx 1 't‘ i» 'Criirtiittitiia'. '.‘.rt.“ T» Hitt‘nriititir. to t .i'hl . in mixing and matching ‘uw t, 'f'r‘ iihpro‘..r;.rt'<rn_~; .itt ".ill‘nni'l? E'Ifiti“.‘.'ltt’rt‘_ ti, .ir’. '.]tit‘t‘ll Hirtrtwt HIIO‘, '3. large Stale ninth st’ l‘t‘ii constructions Ilank the gallon, central houlemrri. whin I illliilil Paolon'i"; .Japarrwu- :nsi rirwii sculpture 'Ht’ll‘W'T Ir‘ Illt‘ .I.iir inww Manner. Mario!r.~t.iit.ie.'it1ir»- playground rtiiintrinti trariit- r}: in".
All the work utanrtr. .iir IIIt' Jinx ti'wy hut you ‘.'.’.)ll(lt‘l hits. .irr, of it tit‘, it With a central TIIif‘llf) wlmh mild tn» applied to all art. ti. not that Tl‘rt‘H.‘ aren't illlllléillih, (f‘.()(1{ill‘.'i.‘{).t.’l generational (ilfil)lét\,f$ on shot; gun? that collectively it's not riotinitim
REVIEW FILM PHOTOGRAPI‘IY
URBAN "ELECTIONS :xaggeration that curators Kirsten Lloyd and Christine enough kitten]??? any real-(Ix rrnrr: r Stills, Edinburgh, until Sun 22 Mar .. ippe seem to specialise in. . . . ground. .. .Jlil. \ (,l ruin .. ,rx Two more of Hornig’s perplexmg prints give way to Echo and Transcend tut-Iv. tr .o w... ,. Five artists attempt to answer novelist Jonathan Raban’s film artist Dan Graham’s exiguous slide show ‘New like it‘s going for a :;r mg. ‘Ntrli (Lr .. )I .» .. call (from his wonderful 1974 book of ‘interdisciplinary’ Jersey’. In the back gallery Graham gets to explain urban reflections, Soft City) to create a ‘vocabulary of himself in the badly shot film ‘Two Way Mirror . . .’ art, of style, to describe the continual creative play of which is equal parts Open University documentary on urban living’. Brutish and barely evolved their language utopian urban preserves and the diary of a stay at touches not on what Richard Hughes saw as central to home dad. the urban experience — ‘the carapace of political fantasy, Only Scottish artist Rhona Warwick finds any comedy the exoskeleton of one’s economic dreams’ of in the situation with her intriguing installation, ‘They architecture but on that dreary fallback position of Looked For the City’, which posits urban foxes and Ballardian wonder at man’s bleak progressions. Arcadian literature to likeable effect. Next, South Sabine Hornig’s large perspex C-prints open the African photo artist Santu Mofokeng’s ‘Dove Lady’ exhibition. ‘Window With No Floor’ (2006) presents the black and white landscapes turns a doleful gaze to the view into a Berlin vacant shop window (with advertising dominated Soweto freeways. Finally, Nina reflections). This dreary slab of gnomic perception is Fischer and Maroan el Sani’s ‘Tokyo Metropolitan supposed to blur ‘the boundaries between Expressway’ double projection film invests automotive photography, sculpture and architecture’ according to paraphilia with all the excitement of a rush hour
the supporting literature with the kind of ‘cutting cloth’ tailback. (Paul Dale)
43$: y ,; REVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY ~- .- w 4 TWO VOICES III - HORTICULTURE BEHIND THE SCENES Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 8 Feb 00
You can't quibble with the aim of this small exhibition. the third in a senor. ot
collaborations between photographer Rosna McKenzie and illustrator ()arr.rila Adams. It's laudable to want to wrden accessibility for all visitors” to tire Royal Botanic Garden and I don't doubt those with impaired Vision will {tl)[)rf:’,lr'il‘: the show's efforts to describe the collection through touch and sound.
But it. as the gallery claims. there is anything extraordinary about McKer we". photographs. it is not in the images themselves. but in the fact of her owr‘ blindness. As With her recent exhibition of pictures taken backstage at the Traverse Theatre. the dozen shots here have no particular artistic r‘rierrt, Neither do they say much about the way a blind person makes sense of the visual world.
McKenzre's desire to record the ‘hard work that gardeners do' by including watering cans. tractors and hydroponic lights alongside the terns. popprer. artrt glasshouses hardly amounts to a profound philosOphy. What's interesting merely that they exrst at all.
The exhibition does take on an extra dimension. hos/ever. rn the aargorrrpar‘pg three-dimertSionaI drawings by Camilla Adams. The artist has rendered McKenzie's photographs in raised black-and—white lines. giving partially sighted gallery-goers a literal outline Of each work I‘Please tOuch the exhibits' says the Sign and the rest of us an abstract interpretation with an elemental appeai as a plastic mesh becomes a hail of dots. leaves take On a felt-like density and a COrridor turns into a simple set of lines heading towards a vanishing pomt, (Mark Fisher;
80 THE LIST 22 Jan—5 Feb 2009