The programme for the 7th edition of the Edinburgh Art Festival was announced today, 2 June 2010. 48 galleries will be featured in the 2010 EAF with 11 participating for the first time. The Festival will run from Thursday 29 July Sunday 5 September with many exhibitions continuing into the Autumn.
Unveiling the 2010 programme Director, Joanne Brown said: “The seventh annual Art Festival showcases the strength and diversity of the visual arts in Edinburgh ensuring a platform during the summer Festival period for this vibrant part of the city’s cultural life. For the 2010 EAF we welcome 11 new galleries many of them showcasing work by an emerging generation of artists,”
“We are particularly pleased this year to have been able to commission three artworks and a programme of interventions with support from the Scottish Government’s Expo Fund. Richard Wright’s new painting in the Dean Gallery of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth’s installation in the City Observatory will be unveiled in the summer. Our the third commission, by 2001 Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, will be unveiled later in the year.”
“Recognising that space is at a premium during the summer, this year we have also been able to support Scottish visual artists, curators and galleries to show their work outwith the gallery context. The four Expo supported interventions range from a late night parade to a mobile gallery selling affordable art. The interventions complement our on-going programme of events and the ever popular ART LATE which this year will be on Thursday 26 August.”
Expo funded commissions: three artworks and four interventions
Among the highlights of the wide-ranging programme this year are a number of projects commissioned by the Art Festival with Scottish Government Expo funding.
2009 Turner Prize winner, RICHARD WRIGHT, is making a new painting in one of the Stairwells of the Dean Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. This work will be unveiled on 30 June 2010.
A second Expo artwork, Staged, sees KIM COLEMAN & JENNY HOGARTH building on the success of their recent Frieze Art Fair commission. Produced by Collective Gallery, the multi-screen video work will be installed in the City Observatory on Calton Hill, once again allowing public access to the building. MARTIN CREED’S new permanent artwork in The Scotsman Steps will be unveiled later in the year, but visitors to the 2010 EAF will be able to see a major exhibition of his work, Down Over Up at The Fruitmarket Gallery. The works on show, which include a new commission on the Gallery's staircase, all relate to stacking and progression in size height and/or tone and reference Creed’s EAF Expo commission. It is hoped to offer the press hard-hat access to The Scotsman Steps during the Festival to see the work in progress..
The four interventions will all take art out of the gallery context. DAVID SHERRY continues his investigation of Health and Safety, which began with a Deveron Arts Residency earlier this year, by staging new manifestations of the Ill Fated Fete in the capital; ROSS CHRISTIE will saddle up his bike and travel around the city in a mobile gallery of affordable art; Embassy, which temporarily moves out of its gallery space this summer, will create a viral publication available across the EAF venues.
Meanwhile the Confraternity of Neoflagellants (Norman Hogg and Neil Mulholland) continue their exploration of neomedievalism by staging Sergeant-At-Law, a late night procession and event with and for Edinburgh’s many costumed tour guides and workers.
A ”neomedievalist flash mob intervention that involves a mash-up of Robert Burn’s Tam O’Shanter and Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs” the event will be filmed and streamed on the art, film, design portal www.thisiscentralstation.com and on the EAF website.
An associated symposium brings together key speakers spanning contemporary cultural and medieval study.
500 years of painting
Painting from 17th century Dutch Landscapes to new work by international artists is featured across the 2010 EAF.
The National Galleries of Scotland offer three major exhibitions.
At the Dean Gallery, Another World: Dalí, Magritte, Miró and the Surrealists is a comprehensive survey of Surrealist art, bringing together masterpieces by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró.
In the National Gallery Complex on The Mound Impressionist Gardens, a major international exhibition of around 100 works including loans from collections around the world, will be the first ever to be devoted to this subject, and Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light presents the most exhaustive selection of paintings by one of the foremost talents of Denmark’s Golden Age, ever to be shown outside his native country.
Meanwhile a Gilbert & George ARTIST ROOMS display opens as part of What you see is where you’re at: Part 3 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the collection Inverleith House this year presents the first UK Gallery show of work by JOAN MITCHELL, the youngest member of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
At Ingleby Gallery the Brazilian artist IRAN DO ESPIRITO SANTO has his first ever UK exhibition and the artist will create a specially-commissioned, site specific installation: a painting across all the gallery walls.
At the Talbot Rice Gallery an exhibition of new work on the theme of childhood by JULIE ROBERTS is paired with a celebration of the late CRAIGIE AITCHESON. The work of BARBARA RAE RSA is celebrated in two exhibitions – prints at Dundas Street Gallery and paintings in the Open Eye Gallery where together with Mathew Draper the artist explores contemporary landscape art.
The Scottish Gallery follows surveys of Elizabeth Blackadder (EAF 2008) and John Bellany (EAF 2009) with a show of new and existing work by VICTORIA CROWE. Making her EAF debut DEIDRE EDWARDS will exhibit new acrylic on canvas paintings including triptychs and four panel works in Atelier 29.
Photography
A series of exhibitions in this 2010 Festival give a platform to artists working in the medium of photography. City Art Centre returns to EAF following its refurbishment with two major photographic exhibitions.
William Wegman: Family Combinations is the first comprehensive show of Wegman’s work in Scotland and the only UK opportunity to catch the exhibition which has been organised in collaboration with the artist’s studio in New York.
In a further coup for the gallery, City Art Centre also presents the only UK showing of a survey of iconic American photographer EDWARD WESTON’S work: 115 vintage prints, and previously unpublished masterpieces are interspersed with signature images.
Blind artist, ROSITA MCKENZIE presents Edinburgh People in the Central Library. The exhibition features a diverse range of portrait from a couple with their first born son to Edinburgh’s Makar (Poet Laureate), Ron Butlin, and the softer face of a local politician.
At the Scottish Poetry Library, Plan B includes 28 perspectives on 10 poems, loosely gathered around the theme of life’s cock-ups, contingencies and conspiracies. The exhibition is the outcome of a special collaboration between the Pulitzer prize-winning Irish poet PAUL MULDOON and the highly acclaimed Scottish photographer NORMAN MCBEATH At Inspace, New Media Scotland will combine technology with history in Life Turns. Alt-w, working in partnership with BAFTA award-winning Blipfoto, will make a 21st century homage to the Victorian zoetrope for display in the gallery. Visitors and on-line participants are encouraged to contribute their own images to the project during the run of the exhibition.
Art and Music
There has long been a symbiotic relationship between the visual arts and music. This year Edinburgh Printmakers follow up their acclaimed exhibition of work by British father of pop art, Sir Peter Blake, with Prints of Darkness 11 new works exploring record cover art.
An associated recording by New People Like Us aka multi-media artist, Vicki Bennett, complements the exhibition. Over at The Henderson Gallery the first of two EAF exhibitions, Nefertiti, showcases new work by artist and Stone Roses guitarist, John Squire inspired by the legendary Miles Davis. This is followed by Macpherson's Cave new sculptural work by Robert Powell exploring the mythologising of history in general and Scottish history in particular. It will also see the premiere of a specially commissioned composition played on the “Conon Doyle” violin.
Art, Architecture and Design
Dovecot studios this year focus on art and design. Sitting and Looking, a cross-art form exhibition curated by furniture designers JIM PARTRIDGE and LIZ WALMSLEY bring together furniture design, contemporary photography, ceramics, textiles and painting to create a juxtaposition of 21st Century objects. Featured designers include GORDON BALWDIN, EL ULTIMO GRITTO and THOMAS HEATHERWICK. In a second exhibition ADAM PAXON continues a curated conversation with four UK designers through film, photography and objects.
Architecture continues to have a focus in the Edinburgh Art Festival. Oliver Chapman Architects this year address two of the hottest topics of conversation in Edinburgh and the Borders - the Edinburgh tram and the Borders rail link. Tram Spotting/Train Stopping takes a fresh look at how to shape our towns and cities showcasing a number of provocative proposals from a select group of international participants under the curatorial direction of Oliver Chapman and Mark Cousins. In the Matthew Gallery at the University of Edinburgh the fifth in a series of post-graduate Master of Architecture Programme exhibitions takes Florence as its theme.
Elsewhere in the City
Bourne Fine Art this year offers Cabinet Works and Studies, well known and recent works by Sculptor Ordinary to the Queen, ALEXANDER STODDART. Also showing sculpture this year is Cornhill Gallery. Faraway Mountain features large granite works by Japanese stone sculptor, ATSUO OKAMOTO who is perhaps best known for his conceptual works crafted using the ancient art of wari modoshi. Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops offer MAGAZINE 10 featuring work by PAUL ROONEY, KATE ORTON and KATE V ROBERTSON.
Focusing on Palestine, Delfina Foundation at Sleeper presents Home/land an exhibition exploring mankind’s invariable attempt of settling in and the consequences of conquering and remodelling the landscape. Also throwing the spotlight on the African continent, Ed Cross Fine Art shows Witness The spectre of memory in contemporary African Art as its first EAF exhibition. The show features work by four artists, two from Kenya, one from Senegal and one from Zimbabwe.
In a group show at 3/3 Antigua Street, If I jump off a bridge, will you follow me? the artists explore how we define concepts of insecurity and security as a society consumed by it, both personally and culturally.
Amber Arts makes its first contribution to the Edinburgh Art Festival with a mixed printmaking show bringing together twelve contemporary artists to consider the notion of ‘The Space Between’. Art’s Complex offers three exhibitions this year. FLOORED sees eight recent ECA graduates take over the massive main gallery; A draw back is the second drawing exhibition in Edinburgh by Perennial Art celebrating the diversity and richness of the ancient practice of drawing, and in Dirt, grit, gluedust, Ian Reddie presents a series of abstract works.
Atticsalt this year shows Natura sensus, an exhibition in which MAIRI GILLIES uses real plant material in sculptural installations. Complex plants are reworked into something completely new and inventive.
Artist Catherine Sargeant makes her EAF debut at Dancebase with a text-based work exploring the language and expression of dance. Coburg House will again host an open studios event for the EAF.
As well as working with Coleman and Hogarth on Staged, Collective Gallery will show a specially-commissioned single screen film work by HITO STEYERI. In GARAGE a group of visual artists, a sound designer, a video artist and a fashion designer will each undertake a micro-residency researching producing and exhibiting new work in this artists run space - an Edinburgh new town garage.
In the Library at ECA JaAliceKlarr will present ShelfLife, a curated mise en abyme of artists’ bookworks and (cross-genre) self-published ‘exhibitions in print’. The result will be a self-reflexive information resource; part-archive, part-exhibition.
Making it’s EAF debut the new “pop up guerilla art space” Komachi presents an exhibition that will include the Berlin artists collective BASSO. LARA GREEN shows work in three differing spaces. The Slow Machines – kinetic branching organic forms in metal and fabric will inhabit the new Usher Hall foyer, the Shiatsu Centre and The Clock Café in Leith.
The pursuit of Fidelity at Stills is the first solo Scottish exhibition by the GSA graduates, ALEXANDER AND SUSAN MARIS who, in the tradition of Joseph Beuys, view their entire lives as a continuous work of art.
TotalKunst presents TKX is a triple bill of contemporary art exhibitions, showcasing new work from a range of local and international artists.
As a part of The Forest cafe and events venue programme with its the highly acclaimed ‘forest fringe’ TKX will exist within the vibrant cultural context of the space itself. Union Gallery making its first appearance at EAF presents Free Spirits: true Edinburgh individuals featuring new and previously unseen work by seven of Edinburgh’s finest and most exciting artists.
Art hits the beach
EAF continues to reach out beyond the centre of Edinburgh with work on show in Kirknewton, Granton, Leith, Portobello and Musselburgh.
Year 2 at Jupiter Artland sees three new additions to the growing collection of contemporary art. Permanent, site-specific works by NATHAN COLEY In Memory, JIM LAMBIE, The Forest, and CORNELIA PARKER are complemented by a temporary piece for the 2010 season, Zopbop by Jim Lambie.
At the Granton Lighthouse Sierra Metro this year offer a site-specific exhibition of work by GEMMA HOLT and RICHARD HEALEY. Also in Granton Lighthouse GallerA1 present Culture Crunch an exhibition inspired by cultural proposals for the seafront at Granton.
Big Things On The Beach make a welcome return to the Edinburgh Art Festival with City Beach - the outcome of a year-long programme of public engagement in the development of a Public Art Plan for Portobello Beach, where three new large-scale public commissions will also be unveiled.
In Newhailles, Musselburgh artist ANNA CHAPMAN will show a range of work made in response to the 17th century historic house and its rich archive held in the National Library of Scotland. Meanwhile the City Centre will be linked to the shore by 6 Times, a National Galleries of Scotland commission from ANTONY GORMLEY in which six life-size figures are positioned between the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the sea.