Scottish Art Events & Exhibitions: August 2024

Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) celebrates its 20th birthday this year with an exciting and timely programme that platforms artists and collectives responding to the biggest global crises of our times. Highlights include an opening performance titled through warm temperatures by dancer, artist and choreographer Mele Broomes at the Custom House in Leith on 9 August; a performance by Prem Sahib titled Alleus, which disrupts and re-directs an anti-immigration speech by Suella Braverman (Castle Terrace Car Park, 16 Aug) and Platform, an exhibition of four emerging Scotland-based artists, held this year at the City Art Centre (opens 9 Aug). 

Elsewhere in Edinburgh, many galleries that are included in EAF's programme keep their exhibitions open after the festival ends on 25 August. Highlights include: Tayo Adekunle’s exhibition Stories of the Unseen at Edinburgh Printmakers (until 10 Nov), an exciting opportunity to see the works of El Anatsui at Talbot Rice (until 29 Sep) and the first ever Scottish solo show by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama at Fruitmarket, famous for his evocative large-scale installations that speak to the cultural and social effects of post-colonialism (until 6 Oct). 

There is also plenty to see away from Edinburgh, particularly in some of Scotland’s coastal and rural areas. At the recently opened Wyllieum in Greenock, Angelo Picozzi will present a series of works reflecting on George Wyllie’s wartime experiences and the visit he made to Hiroshima a few months after the dropping of the atomic bomb which devastated the city. Dates to be confirmed – check The Wyllieum’s website for further details. 

In Dumfries and Galloway, Cample Line launches two exhibitions for the summer. The first, by Turkish artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu, centres on a 2020 textile work titled Pink as a Cabbage/ Green as an Onion/ Blue as an Orange, produced in collaboration with fifteen Turkish agricultural cooperatives and associations using the produce that they cultivate. At the same time, visitors can catch Scottish artist Claire Barclay’s exhibition RAWLESS, which sees Barclay engage with the raw materials, land practices and machinery traditionally associated with wool production in a new installation. Both exhibitions continue until 8 September.

Opening on the last day of August, Mount Stuart presents a solo show by Irish artist Oisín Byrne, his first time exhibiting in Scotland. The starting point for Byrne’s project is of the less well-known collections at Mount Stuart: its Gaelic and Irish books and pamphlets. Continues until 20 October.