Scottish Art Events & Exhibitions: August 2023

Edinburgh Art Festival begins on 11 August, opening with the screening of Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon’s History of the Present from 8pm at The Queen’s Hall. The following day, between 2-3.30pm, the festival’s keynote speech at the National Gallery of Scotland will be delivered by 2021 Turner Prize winners Array Collective and Beirut-based cultural feminist organisation Haven for Artists.

Highlights over the ensuing two weeks include a new performance by Alberta Whittle at Parliament Hall on 13 August; Lindsey Mendick’s SH*TFACED at Jupiter Artland; Sean Burns’ Dorothy Towers and Jesse Jones’s The Tower (currently on display at Talbot Rice). Many exhibitions continue well into September and October, including Christian Noelle Charles’ WHAT A FEELING! | ACT I at Edinburgh Printmakers and Leonor Antunes’ the apparent length of a floor area at Fruitmarket. 

At The Modern Institute in Glasgow, new paintings and pastel drawings by Nicolas Party will be on display until 23 September. Titled Cretaceous, after the ancient time period that culminated in a mass extinction event 66 million years ago, Party reflects on both the destruction of the natural world and the destruction being wreaked by the climate crisis. Around the corner at Street Level Photoworks, Moira McIver’s exhibition Migration Memories examines the history of migration between Donegal and Glasgow. The exhibition continues until 8 October.

At the tail end of the month, Rachel Eulena Williams’ first major solo exhibition in the UK will open at Dundee Contemporary Arts. Williams’ fluid works release painting from the formal rigidity of the canvas, operating between sculpture, collage and painting. Hair and Body will open on 26 August.