Blood, Fusion and Student Debt: This Week in Scottish Art
In this week's Scottish art round-up, Dundee's degree show continues, art students in Edinburgh and Glasgow get in on the act with new exhibitions, and there are more talks, events and exhibitions than you can wave a "polystyrene thing" at.
It's that time of year again, with the first of this year's degree shows taking place in Dundee this week. Make the trip to see DJCAD’s brightest new graduates; with a recent recalibration of the space of the degree show, there’s a non-prescriptive presentation of sharply conceptual work across a whole range of media, including glazed ceramic trophies for the “Wife Carrying Championships”. In the meantime, check out our review of what is "a rabbit warren of an exhibition".
Next up, there’s some urgent notice of one event tonight – a talk and screening of the work of video and performance artist Catherine Street, presented by the Modern Edinburgh Film School in Glasgow’s CCA. Things get underway at 6:30pm; book free tickets via the CCA website.
Now before we get to the weekend, let’s start with Stills’ event on Thursday from 6:30pm, where the question will be asked, What is the Value of Photography Today? In discussion with Stills director Ben Harman, and potentially working from a more monetary idea of “value”, will be high end photography publisher Sebastien Montabonel, also head of art advisory firm Montabonel & Partners. The event is free, but booking is essential.
Also this week are new shows from GSA Masters students from Sound for the Moving Image, and Communication Design. Sound for the Moving Image students will be presenting their interim degree showcase in the exhibition space of The Art School on Scott Street on Thursday from 7pm, and from 6pm this Friday in the New Glasgow Society the Communication Design students will host an opening party for their show FUSION “featuring a multicultural and multidisciplinary group hailing from Canada, China, France, Scotland…”, and their list continues. Com Des is classically pretty fluid in its parameters, so there should be a good load of exciting and surprising works.
Moving on to a busy Friday, and starting early in Edinburgh, there’s a curator’s tour of the Nicolas Party exhibition in Inverleith House from 2-3pm. Party has again painted the walls of the entire space of his exhibition and included his idiosyncratically rendered landscapes, portraits and still life paintings.
It’s also the first day of Clyde Reflections, the second presentation for GoMA’s Moving Image Festival. In their 33-minute film, artists Stephen Hurrel and Ruth Brennan have filmed interviews featuring the backdrop of the Firth of Clyde, with its loaded cultural history and frequent manmade edits to this landscape.
Inverleith House, currently playing host to an exhibition by Nicolas Party
On Friday evening at the CCA in Glasgow, there’s the opening for the winners of this year's Jerwood/FVU Awards. This award is given to artists working with moving image, and at an early career stage. Lucy Clout is one of two winners, and her work 'From Our Own Correspondent' is filmed in a series of anonymous hotel rooms, tracking the personal burden of a news reporter in the face of the round the clock deadlines of the 24-hour news cycle.
Marianna Simnett is the the second recipient of the prize, and will be showing Blood, a fairytale like film which goes begins with the young protagonist Isabel’s rhinoplasty, and moves from her sickbed to the mountain landscapes of Albania and encounters a kind of protector in Lali, an Albanian sworn virgin. On Sunday from 10.30am to 3pm, there is a symposium to accompany the exhibition – tickets are £6 (£3), and a full schedule of events and speakers can be found on the CCA website.
Also in Glasgow this Friday, Adam Quinn and Kuusik present Leger Demain, the latest in a series of collaborative exhibitions. Working together since their (very recent) days at GSA, both take a conceptual and experimental approach to printmaking. They're also more than up for taking a screenprint on canvas and making it the back of a deckchair. They will be showing their latest exploits in The Albus on Brook Street from 7pm.
Meanwhile from 6-9pm, the lovely young people of Good Press will be celebrating their launch of Dave Ferrie’s new photo book WHERE WHICH WAY WHY, described as “320 pages of black & white goodness, featuring photos from Scotland and Italy as well as some poetic genius from Glasgow based wordsmith Alexander Abraham.” You can view some of the photos from the book on Ferrie's website.
Good Press also helpfully take us into Saturday when, from 3-6pm, they launch two more new publications, Light Levels and White Window. Light Levels comes from Portland-based Antonia Pinter, and showcases recent paintings with text by Patricia No and Pinter herself. The second publication, White Window, features images from Glasgow-based Abigale Neate Wilson.
Running this Saturday and Sunday only, the Edinburgh College of Art MFA cohort present their interim show – the cunningly-titled 'Interim' – in the Talbot Rice Gallery. Get ready with their brilliant exhibition text/rapid fire interrogation, which is just a series of questions including “What happens when your student debt walks in – a life-sized sculptural lump – demanding your space, or those polystyrene things you get in packaging appear in glass?”
Finally, and seeing as it only runs for one night, here’s plenty of advance warning for Glasgow-based painter Enya Lachman-Curl's exhibition in the Old Hairdresser’s, with work from fine art architect Ben Weir. Lachman-Curl explores with a deft hand the materials of the painter, while alluding to the hyper-realities of JG Ballard in her luscious, almost virtual reality compositions. Weir puts his years of architectural training to experimental and fine art ends in his semi-autobiographical drawings and paintings. See the exhibition from 7-9pm next Wednesday.