“It’s the kind of elitist statement that rescues failed experimentation from the paper bin (or “recently deleted” folder) and forces the viewer to deny the evidence of their own eyes and join the art world and its enablers in nodding approvingly over the emperors’ new clothes.” In her first post here a young artist comments on a Tube makeover…
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Optimism of the will in Future Library
Camus speaks for our era: ‘The time of the irresponsible artists is over… The freedom of art is not worth much when its only purpose is to assure the artists comfort‘. Katie Paterson’s work (Future Library) takes that observation and invocation to heart. Go see it however you can…
Who’s it for – yon McMenace?
“So they come and see what the McManus has to offer and then the museum changes from something ‘we can do’ with our kids to ‘this is something we NEED to do with our kids.’”
GSA fire: lessons from the exclusion zone
The second Glasgow School of Art fire has become a case study in how not to help neighbouring residents after a disaster. Everyone from the owners of the damaged building to the local authorities need to learn the lessons to make sure we don’t see the likes of this again.
Oscar Marzaroli: Scottish snapper
‘This must surely be one of the most extraordinary collections of photos of 20th century Scotland, and Glasgow in particular.’
England’s southern North
‘Clearly, there are significant variations in economic and cultural output within the north of England. Before our very eyes, a new north-south divide is emerging, within what was previously understood as “the north” itself.’
Rudolph von Ripper: artist eyewitness to Nazi terror
Eyewitness artists’ accounts of brutality in Nazi concentration camps are extremely rare. Sian Mackay describes her discovery of Rudolph von Ripper’s forgotten portfolio, work that deserves to stand alongside the art of his contemporaries Otto Dix, George Grosz and Käthe Kollwitz.
Rite of Spring – close up and personal
‘I have loved the Rite of Spring since I first heard it, more than 30 years ago. Visceral, violent stuff. Spring, like human birth, does not deliver easily. Stravinsky delighted in the cracking ice that signalled the bursting of new life into Russia’s frozen landscape.’
Advice For Our Times: art meets social service
Advice For Our Times, a pop up event at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery on Thursday 8 February, highlights gaps in advice, support and social services for people suffering adversity of many different kinds.
Weaving a magic spell against Brexit
‘But here and now, for sanity sake, I abandon the endless stream of anger in the digital world, stuff my silenced phone in my back pocket, pick up a pair of secateurs and venture out into the fresh air’. On Douglas, Atholl and ‘..celebrating a natural world without borders, the spirit of human adventure, and offering a fragrant protection against bad politics’.