Leopards, Grids and Hannibal Lecter: This Week in Scottish Art
Big cat sightings inspire a new show at David Dale, a host of exhibitions come to a close in Dundee, and there's a talk from a BP Portrait Award judge; all that and more in this week's art round-up.
Dundee is the place to be in the early part of this week, with all four of the main institutions open, and when taken together their offerings make for an interesting programme of exhibitions. At the Hannah Maclure Centre until Friday, Decoding Space brings together a series of projects from the realm of digital performance. Friday also sees the end of Portuguese artist Hugo Canoilas’ first major Scottish exhibition in the Cooper Gallery.
The typical working week for Glasgow and Edinburgh residents may not allow for a weekday Dundee daytrip, but in this case DCA’s exhibition on iconic 80s photographer Maripol is open daily until 21 June and Hans K. Clausen and Kim W. Wilson's What Remains continues at Generator until 19 April. On Wednesday, there will be an artist talk on What Remains at Generator from 7-9pm – free, no booking necessary [This event will now take place on Wed 15 Apr, from 7-9pm] .
Also this Wednesday, over at the CCA in Glasgow, exhibiting artist Ross Hamilton Frew will take part in a Q&A session from 5pm. In his exhibition Locus of Points, Hamilton Frew works with elements of “page construction and graphic design grid-systems”, as well as frustrating his usual means of drawing by experimenting with machinic and handmade processes.
This Friday in Glasgow, David Dale Gallery preview their new show Never Spotted Leopard. UK-born, Denmark-based artists Keith Allan and Tomas Downes identify in the phenomenon of “unproven big cat sightings ... an apt metaphor for the parallel conflicting states that their practices embrace.” For Allan’s part, he reworks the surfaces of found and discarded objects, while Downes will present prints of re-photographed surfaces. The preview is this Friday from 7-9pm, and the exhibition continues until 16 May.
In Edinburgh on Friday, David McDiarmid returns to Interview Room 11. This time, it’s for his solo show, Projection: “a new, ambitious site specific installation involving the large-scale projection of miniature scale models.” Frequently working with scale models and construction materials (cement, plaster, concrete), McDiarmid works with the operation of architectural design as a means of exerting power and propagandic influence. Projection is open from 10-25 Apr.
Staying in Edinburgh, it’s the last week of Inverleith House’s exhibition of the work of Belgian painter Raoul de Keyser, closing this Sunday (12 Apr). Showcasing work which spans from 1967 to his death in 2012, de Keyser’s (at first sight) abstract work with its subtle allusions to space and the figurative, has found its currency within present painting trends. This Saturday, de Keyser expert Steven Jacobs speaks about the early works of the painter and contextualises the pieces within '60s and '70s art movements, as well as de Keyser’s wider career.
Also in Edinburgh and finishing this Sunday, it’s the BP Portrait Award 2014. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery hosts the free exhibition of “the very best in contemporary portrait painting from around the world.” On Wednesday, the Gallery hosts a talk by author and BP Portrait Award judge Joanna Trollope, giving “A Novelist’s View of Portraiture”.
Finally, we look ahead to the start of next week. Taking over from Ross Hamilton Frew in the CCA’s Intermedia space, Gordon Douglas’ series of events entitled The Garden is Our Wall begins next Tuesday (14 Apr) with Nib: Complete Sea. For this first “live art event”, there will be an exploration of the ways in which the new myths of pop culture (“Harry Potter, Christian Grey, and the Avengers”) can be appropriated and put to alternative use. In this spirit, there will be “a number of fans, artists and writers who have drawn from the mythology of Dr Hannibal Lecter for their own ends.” Contributors include fandom journalist and film costume specialist Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, artist and playwright Andrew Black and fan fiction from Heather Hardcastle. Tue 14 Apr, 7pm arrival for 7:30pm start