Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Various venues, Edinburgh
28 July – 3 September
Reviewed by: Guyan John Porter
‘Annuale’ is co-coordinated by The Embassy, with a broad programme including publication launches, live events and exhibitions. Claiming to be “playing on the high budget, high profile international art Biennales and Triennials”, it includes a diversity of artist-led activity in sixteen venues across the city, showing an ambitious range of work, and a visual arts alternative to the Edinburgh Festival.
At TotalKunst in the collectively run Forest Café, Living Room Banter is an installation by three artists, curated by Ben Newell, “based on the idea of the living room as a hub of inspiration”. It is hard to distinguish where one work ends and another begins, creating spurious conversations between the images. On the wall as you go in there is a torn bit of card with a scribbled plan illustrating the layout of the works. With endless references to pop culture all set in what looks like an art students’ living room, the show also makes nods towards public protest and isolationism, with the television literally taking centre stage. Paul Pable’s work, Portrait of a Man Inhabited by his Space, collages ripped up magazines and newspaper text surrounding the scribbled words “and suddenly there was a clash of voices”. Emily Ritchie shows a series of naïvely drawn biro portraits framed and titled Countless Meanwhiles, with further photocopied drawings stuck on top of magazine cuttings. Gregory D Bradford has covered the back wall with a load of torn cardboard. At the bottom of the wall is a scribbled sign saying Main Building Janitors.
Following instructions on the website, I head for ‘Magnifitat’ – a show in a flat, which has been used intermittently as an exhibition space since 2002, showing over sixty artists’ works. Unfortunately I arrive to find the show isn’t open yet. Fortunately I happened to meet Ben and Holly, (also trying to see the show). They are making a durational piece of performance art – Table for Two – during this year’s Fringe festival. Taking place on board Dr Robert’s Magic Bus, they are publicly recording all their eating and toilet activities for the twenty-three-day period.
At The Embassy is a show of five artists with the deceptively playful title, ‘Playing Beyond the Ha Ha’. There is an air of decadence and materiality throughout this show, and this work manages to capture an idea of glamour and greed, and how wrong it can all go. In Francis Summers’ The End, a large projection of the head of a glamour model judders disconcertingly, with the words ‘The End’ slowly and erratically taking form across her face. Neil Davidson’s Thermos Museum adopts the back and garden spaces, creating a museum to the humble thermos flask. With a brilliant audio sound tour that gives an intimate history to these constructed interiors, it creates a quirky and nostalgic environment, and questions the construction of history and culture. I am fortunate enough to overhear Davidson in conversation whilst he is building the world’s biggest thermos, talking about his dad and modern architecture. If only this was part of the piece. Tonya McMullan’s Revolving Jewellery Cabinet glistens alluringly, looking on first sight surprisingly like a revolving jewellery cabinet. The jewellery however is all made out of discarded silver foil and cardboard, and along with her Magic Tree Chandelier adds vital elements to this sinister environment. Throughout this show there is an intensity and a precision amidst the comical and the throwaway, with the words ‘The End’ leaving a prophetic and ominous message.
The mission statement of ‘Annuale’ is disappointing. As the American and British governments continue to supply weapons of mass destruction to Israel and numerous other states, should concerns about international art biennales really be given this much profile when more pressing issues are surrounding us? On saying that, there is a range of work throughout the festival dealing with a range of issues, with the international art market quite low down on the priority scale. The work that stands out does not deal directly with political issues, but looks at strange aspects of culture that grow out of uncertainty, often dealing with the underlying, the unseen. Neurosis and distrust hidden away surely breeds monsters.
Writer detail:
Guyan Porter
guyanporter@bulldoghome.com |
www.guyanporter.co.uk
Venue detail:
Edinburgh Annuale
, Edinburgh
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