Photography in Edinburgh, Scotland
As you know, I regularly keep an eye on all things arty back in Scotland, and at this time of year it is all going off! August is the month when Edinburgh gets filled to the brim with Festivals, comedy, theatre, street and for the last 4 years, a dedicated Visual Arts Festival. YIPPEE! Here are some things photographic going on in the Capital City, and some of the rest of the big stuff.
JOHN STEZAKER at STILLS
Breathing new life into photographs salvaged from forgotten film archives and obsolete
magazines, John Stezaker intuitively transforms these found portraits into otherworldly, uncanny beings. Playing with our fascination with the face, Stezaker’s subtle yet unsettling interventions toy with the subconscious and the surreal. (www.stills.org)
ALEX HARTLEY at FRUITMARKET
Alex Hartley is a British artist whose work confronts our experience and understanding of the built and natural environments. Working primarily with photography, though often incorporating it into sculpture and installation, Hartley occupies a shifting set of roles from photographer and architectural historian to rambler and mountaineer, offering an original analysis of architecture and its relationship to landscape.
The exhibition brings together a significant body of existing and new work. It begins on the façade of the building, on which Hartley will make a new work that particularly exemplifies his highly individual approach. He is interested in ‘buildering’ (climbing on buildings), and will clad The Fruitmarket Gallery in an exactly scaled mage of itself, marked with the various routes he has climbed up the façade. (www.fruitmarket.co.uk)
Some of the big names hitting the city this year are Andy Warhol at the National Gallery, Picasso’s Ceramic work at the National Museum of Scotland , William Kentridge at Edinburgh Printmakers and look out for The Naked Portrait a look at the modern nude at The National Portrait Gallery.
I keep up to date with Scottish goings-on through this online magazine, The LIST. I was a regular reader back home, and it really is a great round-up of all things hip…
