VisualArt
REVIEW PAINTING JAMES HUGONIN Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh until Sat 20 Nov ●●●●●
Music and movement is at the heart of this display of eight works by the Borders-based artist to mark his 60th birthday. Identical in scale and scope, each canvas painstakingly maps out an interlocking network of coloured brick-shaped grids that dance about their large-scale square surface in busy but constant motion, like some cartoon traffic jam slowly honking its way home.
With only one painting made a year, at first casual glance there’s little to gauge between them, but in actual fact, where the two earliest works, ‘Untitled (I)’, dating from 1988, and ‘Untitled (II)’ are pale and interesting, the more ‘recent’ pieces, ‘Untitled (XIII)’ through to ‘Untitled (XVIII)’ are bolder in tone. If such a willfully restricted palette resembles the pictorially suggestive scores of avant- garde composers, it’s deliberate, and possesses the sort of spacey aspiration for Zen-like calm one can imagine Brian Eno attempting to co- opt. Where Eno’s video paintings have a slowly morphing fluidity, however, there’s a quietly insistent solidity to Hugonin’s works that, when lined up together, provide strength and substance rather than aural wallpaper.
On November 16th, cellist Peter Gregson will play a programme of work in response to Hugonin’s paintings. Continuing the current slow burning minimalist takeover across Scotland, works by Morton Feldman, Philip Glass and Steve Reich will feature. In Hugonin’s world, at least, it’s hip to be square. (Neil Cooper)
90 THE LIST 7–21 Oct 2010
REVIEW SCULPTURE NICK EVANS: ANTI-AUTONOME Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 30 Oct ●●●●●
Figures take the shape of yoga positions – the plaster forms bend and twist into the momentary pose of a fish, a mermaid, people fornicating, seated, running and riding. These sculptures are bold, solid, pure white, amorphous, the seams of their construction visible. Their anthropomorphic stances entice you to see a face, but as you walk around you realise there is none – they have shut themselves off from the viewer, like shy, chunky inward-looking creatures.
Nick Evans has constructed seven sculptures from the same building blocks. With four different moulds, he has given life to a new species of large-scale amoeba-like creature. He is known for his self- conscious references to art history and the traditional use of sculptural methods. Here too, the classical appearance of the objects seems to emerge from his knowledge of history. He places the works on simple wooden supports. These structures, machine-cut in the form of ethnic design benches and tables, have been screenprinted
with simple brightly bi-coloured motifs. The result is a strange blend of pop-primitivism and modernist high art. The prints show a motif of sperm swimming playfully across the tabletops. Evans mixes the contrasting elements into the murky pool from where all creative energy originates. Acknowledging their ancestry, he brings a new species into being; with ethnic lower bodies and classical torsos, they form a new tribe of modern-day centaurs. Where Evans’ last show at Washington Garcia was
very much about the materiality of the works, his new exhibition moves deeper into the conceptual framework. Just as his work is rooted in art history, his exhibitions unfold as chapters in his own book.
Where Use History Autonome was a dark, private, X-
rated affair for art audiences, Anti-Autonome at Mary Mary is more restrained, playing into consumerism by appearing more conservative. Full of humour and dodgy pokes at primitivist tendencies, it highlights the artist’s satirical side. If this show is the anti-thesis of his previous thesis –
showing the breadth of his artistic range – the synthesis is well worth waiting for. (Talitha Kotzé)
REVIEW ARCHITECTURE (HI)STORY: VIEWING THE OLD TOWN FROM HERMIONE’S WINDOW SCHOP Gallery, Edinburgh, until Fri 15 Oct ●●●●●
Art and architecture meet philosophy and psychiatry in Klas Hyllen’s well-researched show, beautifully presented in SCHOP. The gallery may be small, but size is unimportant with such complex theories and such a variety of 2D works and installations. At the heart of the exhibition is Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen in Greek
mythology, who was later explored in some depth by French writer/philosophers Foucault and Racine with regards to themes of madness and non-being. Here Hermione becomes a metaphor for Edinburgh’s Old Town. Hyllen explores the heart of the capital through a series of works ranging from graphite rubbings of the ground to wonderfully overlaid digital photographs. Hermione herself is revealed in the centre of the room, a meticulously thought- out and constructed footprint of black shapes suspended above a mirror. ‘Voices from the City’ reflects the opinions of 60 of the Old Town’s inhabitants delivered
through an MP3 player set in a mixed-media construction – a fantastical architectural model.
The strength of the exhibition lies in the body of background research. Hyllen has spent time exploring every avenue available to describe his theme. His accompanying explanations may be confusing, but half the joy (and challenge) is attempting to understand the multi-disciplinary threads of thought.
Making several references to madness, he suggests he is ‘putting the city on the (psychiatrist’s) couch’. And there it may remain for several years of therapy. (Miriam Sturdee)
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