VISUAL ART | Previews & Reviews
EXHIBITION CELTS National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, until Sun 25 Sep ●●●●●
Facing down as you enter the Celts exhibition is a 2500-year- old sandstone warrior from Southern Germany. He towers like a totem pole, solemn and horn-helmed. He doesn’t feel Celtic, not in the tartan tea towels and pewter jewellery sense. He feels powerful, timeless, and profoundly alien. This exhibition, drawn largely from the collections of the
British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland, aims to shake up our perception of the Celtic world. It starts with the premise: there is no single Celtic race, but a group of diverse, interconnected, Europe-wide cultures.
The first and largest section of the exhibition showcases these commonalities and differences in the period 450–150BC. Jewellery, weaponry, chariot fittings – these objects are Iron Age bling, exquisite works of craftsmanship used to display wealth and status. The artistic language of Celtic Europe was largely abstract, the patterns sometimes concealing human or animal forms, and often mysterious.
Displayed in a space of its own, the famed Gundestrop Cauldron is among the strangest objects, elaborately decorated in a style which seems to meld East and West.
The rest of the show zips through nearly 2000 years: the
Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Vikings, the survival of Celtic decorative style in Britain and its adoption by Christianity, the legacy of Victorian Celtic romanticism. These are complex stories, and sometimes clarity suffers. But the best of the objects here stop us in our tracks with their freshness and the quality of their design and craftsmanship, pointing to makers who were artists not barbarians, but who operated in a world wholly different to our own. (Susan Mansfield)
SCIENTIFIC ART DUNCAN MARQUISS: COPYING ERRORS Dundee Contemporary Arts, until Sun 3 Jul
Science is ever ruining our romantic notions of free will, love and happiness, reminding us constantly that we are nothing more than DNA and hormones. Copying Errors, Duncan Marquiss’ largest exhibition to date, considers whether culture itself can be quantified by examining it through the prism of scientific enquiry. The main draw is Marquiss’ Margaret Tait Award
commission, the film Evolutionary Jerks & Gradualist Creeps. It covers evolutionary biology with talking heads offering insight into the world of paleontology. One of the scientists is also fascinated by the evolution of musical instruments providing the perfect case study for Marquiss: we see a collection of trumpets arranged in the way that Darwin might have illustrated the evolution of a species.
In Gallery 1 are works mostly on paper that
embody some of the artist’s concerns so eloquently explored in the documentary. In his drawings and prints we can trace the evolution of his own practice since 2008. The roughly-hewn works seem to celebrate happy accidents and anomalies. As with scientific discovery, art depends on mistakes to bring about progress and Copying Errors seeks to elevate uncertainty and imperfection. (Neil Cooper)
98 THE LIST 2 Jun–1 Sep 2016
PHOTOGRAPHY TAYLOR WESSING PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT PRIZE 2015 Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 18 Jun–Sun 2 Oct INDIAN ART PEHCHAAN / THE INDIA STREET BAZAAR Tramway, Glasgow, Sat 18 Jun–Sat 30 Jul & Fri 10 Jun–Sun 24 Jul
Organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London and touring the country throughout 2016, the Taylor Wessing Prize showcases the world’s best contemporary photographic portraiture. ‘This year’s exhibition comprises 55 photographs,’ says Anne Lyden, International Photographer Curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. ‘This selection is drawn from 4,929 entries submitted from 70 countries. These images are of presidents and refugees, celebrity figures and next-door neighbours; the sheer diversity is fascinating.’ President Obama and Benedict Cumberbatch
both feature, and this year’s display will also include two new portraits by the contemporary South African photographer Pieter Hugo as part of a new feature called In Focus. In the competition winner, Five Girls, David Stewart photographed his daughter and her four friends seated around a table. ‘Many images also focused on the refugee crisis and war-torn areas of the world,’ notes Lyden. ‘Kai Wiedenhöfer’s photograph is a powerful portrait of two sisters who were both injured in a rocket attack. The potency of this image is unforgettable.’ (David Pollock)
For many, the phrase ‘Indian art’ calls up images of classical paintings with colourful figures. There won’t be much of that in evidence in Pehchaan, a major exhibition of Indian art at Tramway 2.
Pehchaan, which means ‘identity’ in Urdu and Hindi, is subtitled ‘Art from another India’: think brightly painted truck panels and modernist sculpture with an Indian twist. At the heart of the show is work commissioned by Glasgow Museums in 2013 from contemporary artists in north India. It complements their historical collection, which will be displayed alongside artefacts from the colonial era in an immersive environment created by young Glasgow-based textile designer Gabriella Marcella. Meanwhile, in Tramway 5, the doors will open
on The India Street Bazaar. For this textile project curated by Katy West, seven designers from India and Scotland have been invited to respond to the archives and design books of the United Turkey Red Company, once a textile dyeing powerhouse in the west of Scotland. Working with craftspeople in Gujarat, they then created a series of sustainably- produced textiles and garments, including scarves, cushions and pajamas. (Susan Mansfield)