From Stan Douglas to Asparagus Piss Raindrop: This Week in Scottish Art

Across Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow this week, here's the summary of what's opening and closing this week, as well as the events that you'd rather not miss

Feature by Adam Benmakhlouf | 05 Nov 2014

Let’s start this week’s schedule of Scottish art exhibitions and events with the endings. In Dundee, two shows finish their runs this week. The first is in Generator and titled View, an ambitious group exhibition that takes a critical look at the development decisions taking place in Dundee that are not otherwise subject to questioning. Heather Phillipson's solo show will also come to a close this week, her loud and colourful multimedia work currently on show in DCA. Both shows finish this Sunday, 9 November.

In Edinburgh this week the Fruitmarket Gallery open their new exhibition of the work of Stan Douglas. Douglas has been recognised for his work internationally since Documenta X in 1997 where his film installation Der Sandmann was exhibited. Douglas’s work spans itself complicatedly across photography, film and installation while concerning itself with geographies of place, diverse narratives and references to literature, film and music from Hitchcock to Adorno. The preview is free to all, and runs Thursday 6 November, 6-8pm. 

Still in Edinburgh this Friday, there’s the makings for a very short exhibition opening pub crawl, as Stills launch a new exhibition of the work of Chloe Dewe Mathews. In the exhibition, entitled Shot at Dawn, Matthews systematically documents the settings of deserters’ executions during World War One. This Friday, 7 November, Matthews will deliver a talk before the opening which runs from 6-8pm. Places for the event can be booked here. Also opening at the same time across the city is No Fixed Abode, a collaboration between Edinburgh Printmakers and The Big Issue which will examine the complex realities of homelessness.

On Sunday, Inverleith House host the opening reception for their new exhibiton Invented Acoustical Tools 1969-2014 by Tony Conrad. The artist will be playing a selection of his instruments and presenting additional film and video works around 1.30pm. The event may be invite-only, but it's in the middle of the Botanics so worth a loiter. Sunday 9 November, 12-3pm. 

To Glasgow, for Victoria Morton, whose show will open in The Modern Institute Aird’s Lane on Friday. Morton’s paintings are often motley, intensely coloured, and variously abstract. For anyone in Edinburgh who’d like to see some of Morton’s work but can’t bear to travel too far, Morton is still on exhibition as part of the GENERATION show in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Also opening in Glasgow this week is the Glasgow Women’s Library’s 21 Revolutions in Platform in the East End. The exhibit features the work of 21 of the foremost Glasgow female artists today. There’s an added incentive to make the journey west – the chance to see Alex Frost’s large scale permanent mosaic work outside the council run leisure complex.

As an advance warning for booking, on Tuesday 11 and Wednday 12 November in The Arches Ron Athey will perform the fourth installation of his Incorruptible Flesh series. Athey’s renowned and uncompromising performances are sexual, atmospheric, often disturbing (frequently involving graphic self-mutilation) and poetic. Athey returns to Glasgow as part of the Glasgay festival, having conducted research in the CCA in 1996 before the beginning of the Incorruptible Flesh Series. Tickets for the performances are £15 (concession £10) and available here.

Before Athey next week, there’s performance to be seen, as Asparagus Piss Raindrop continue to infest Transmission. Asparagus Piss Raindrop describe themselves as “a crypto-conceptual science-fiction anti-band formed from a dreadful, ever expanding pool of improviser / composer / performers.” APR are one-and-a-half weeks into their time in Transmission, where they are developing their experimental performance and music work. Punctuating the five weeks are a few chances to see what they’re up to all day. This Saturday 8 November, APR promise “large scale modular group activity with (in)appropriate formalities.” Here, as our art video of the week, is the group performing in Iceland at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavík.

Please email details of future events to adam@theskinny.co.uk