Narcissus Reflected @ Fruitmarket Gallery

When Narcissus gazed upon his reflection in a pool of water he fell in love. Unable to embrace this watery heart-throb, he pined away and became immortalised by the gods into the form of a flower. With this Greek myth as its basis, the current group exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery investigates how artists have explored the story of Narcissus, and themes of narcissism in their work, from the late 19th century through to the present day.

The central focus of the exhibition is undoubtedly Salvador Dali’s ultra-famous Metamorphosis of Narcissus – displayed alongside a poem he wrote to accompany it – and the implausibly impressive hand-drawn collage, Narkissos, by one-name wonder, San Franciscan artist, Jess, shown here for the first time outside of the USA. The strength of these two works alone would have been enough to sustain their own show, but the curators did not stop here.

Through the experimental films and photographs of artists such as Pierre Molinier, Cecil Beaton and Claude Cahun, the ground floor of the exhibition explores the adoption of Narcissus as a cult-gay icon and the themes of homoeroticism and androgyny that were a recurring subject in works of the 20th century.

There is a playful nature to the first floor of the gallery. You can experience Pipilotti Rist’s hypnotic, double screened, sub-aquatic, immersive environment, Sip My Ocean, and Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, a maze of mirrored balls that capture your reflection and distort and replicate it a hundred times over.

This is an ambitious exhibition, but a very successful one, nonetheless. There is an impressive collection of big name artists, presented in an intimate setting and the diversity in the works unites to create layers of complexity and intrigue. As with many of its past exhibitions, the gallery has a great balance of interpretive information and subjective musings, enabling each viewer to have their own uninhibited experience of the show. [Marcus Pibworth]