This Week in Scottish Art: Sonica, DCA & more

Glasgow exhibitions

We begin with the latest of The Old Hairdressers’ series of one night exhibitions, with recent Glasgow School of Art Painting graduate Jessica Whiteley exhibiting a new set of paintings in The Tall Grass.

Working quite traditionally between paintings on canvasses and modelmaking, throughout her practice there’s childish imagery and playfulness, with strangely dour and dreamy results. One night only, the show opens today (Tue 27 Oct) at 6.30pm, and continues ‘til late.

Staying in Glasgow, from this Thursday (29 Oct), Sonica stretches across the far reaches of the city and beyond. Earlier this month, we had a good chat with Cathie Boyd, who outlined the most exciting events in the programme and some of the new and unusual venue additions to the line-up, including the Glasgow Science Centre basement and the Hamilton Mausoleum.

At the latter, musician and sound artist Lauren Sarah Hayes continues her ongoing series of site-specific performances. She will be working with the Hamilton Mausoleum’s famously long echo, the longest of “any man-made structure.” 15 Seconds takes place on 7 and 8 Nov. Tickets cost £5/£10, including transport to and from the venue from the CCA - the bus departs at 1.15pm on both days. This is a long notice warning, with advice to book a place ASAP with an email to admin@cryptic.org.uk.

Dundee Exhibitions

This Thursday from 5.30pm-7.30pm, Cooper Gallery preview their new Autumn exhibition Tomorrow Was a Montage. For this presentation, the work of three decades of Polish and Hungarian artists is exhibited, and makes a feature of a multidisciplinary interest in graphic design, animation, artists’ films and performance.

The show's central point is the montage, as an artistic technique of continuing relevance and subversive importance. This Thursday’s preview will include a performance by emerging Polish film and sound artist Wojciech Bąkowski; the show runs until 18 Dec.

More reason to head through to Dundee this Thursday, with the DCA presenting (((echo))) on the same night from 7pm. Bringing together local artists and writers, the night is structured around their presentations designed to provoke conversation about the gallery's current show.

There’s likely to be particularly lively debate around the work by Hideyuki Katsumata, which makes extensive reference to manga and psychedelia, and occupies the DCA galleries at the moment with a huge mural as well as his paintings, prints and animations. Katsumata’s exhibition continues until 15 November.

Edinburgh Exhibitions

There’s a waitlist for Ingleby Gallery’s Binary Rhythm: Music for James Hugonin Paintings this Friday at 7pm (doors at 6.30pm). Might be worth putting your name down for the event, which pairs James Hugonin’s minutely patterned large oil and wax on board works with solo harpist Ruth Wall, playing work by the likes of Arvo Part and John Cage. If the wait list doesn’t work out, a reconditioned piano performance will take place daily from 30 October until 21 November at 1pm.

Collective this week team up with the ECA Friday Lecture series to present a talk by artist Petra Bauer. Interested in the role of moving images in constructing and representing histories, Bauer will complete a research process during the development phase of Collective’s City Observatory Complex.

Right now, she is researching “women’s groups in Edinburgh from charitable organisations to informal groups where where women get together to share everyday duties as well as to change larger political structures.” For Friday’s event, Bauer will present her own work and discuss her interest in film as political practice. Beginning at 11.30am in the Main Lecture Theatre at ECA's Lauriston Campus, the talk will last an hour and a half, including question time to finish.

Africa in Motion festival

This week across Glasgow and Edinburgh, there is also the Africa in Motion Festival. As well as the full and fabulous programme of film screenings, there are two exhibitions across Glasgow and Edinburgh.

In the Old Hairdressers again, until Sunday 1 November, there is Ways We Watch Films in Africa. After a call by the Africa in Motion festival to professional and amateur photographers, AiM “received stunning images of street pop-up cinemas, crowded film parlours, mobile phone cinema, film festival screenings and more.” This exhibition runs concurrently in the Filmhouse in Edinburgh.

Exclusively in St John’s Church Hall, there is The Unrepaired Past, a poster exhibition. Two sets of six images, one from the past and one more contemporary, are used to examine the persistence of the effects of slave trade beyond abolition, also until 1 November.

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More Scottish Art News:

• Get the early programme details for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2016
• Turner Prize 2015 review – departures from usual media, working practices and forms