Edinburgh Art Festival preview

Edinburgh has always been kind to the gallery-goer, but things will get crazy this August as venues the length and breadth of Auld Reekie pull out the big guns to impress the festival crowds. They certainly don't get any bigger than Picasso, and a selection of his works on paper will be on show at the Dean Gallery, while the National Museum will exhibit everything from intimate photos to personal mementos in an attempt to find out what made the artist tick. For Picasso, rampant commercialism put a taint on a brilliant career, but for Warhol, selling out was always the primary objective – and the National Gallery will host a massive retrospective of his diverse output over the festival period. Other highlights include work by South African artist William Kentridge at Edinburgh Printmakers, the world premiere of a series of photos by William Eggleston at Inverleith House, Alex Hartley's spatial oddities at the Fruitmarket and John Stezaker's witty photographic interventions at Stills gallery. The festival's first ever director, Joanne Brown, is also promising an eastern European theme, with Georgian artists at Patriothall gallery and six Polish artists as part of a group show curated by Canvas at ARTSPACE gallery. Add in Nathan Coley at Doggerfisher, Rachel Whiteread at Ingleby Gallery and the Collective Gallery's Comic Book Project (exploring the relationship between performance and art) and you've barely scratched the surface. With the grassroots Edinburgh Annuale still unannounced at time of going to press, and the Jardins Publics project intent on turning Edinburgh's public spaces into a work of art, 2007 promises to be a vintage year for the Edinburgh Art Festival.