28 July – 28 August
Our thirteenth edition presented 52 exhibitions and pop up events at 42 venues across the city, including the second edition of the festival’s new dedicated platform for emerging talent, and 7 new publicly sited projects conceived for the festival by Scottish and international artists reflecting on the theme of monuments.
“Darkness has descended on Scotland’s capital, with monstrous statues, robot babies and macabre examinations of the human soul. Go and be corrupted”
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
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Commissions Programme
More Lasting than Bronze
In Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, our 2016 commissions programme explored one of the most important points of intersection for art and architecture in our city: the monument. Whether buildings in miniature or sculpture writ large, monuments inhabit a curious no-man’s land between art and architecture.
The programme took its title from the Roman poet Horace. Writing just over twenty centuries ago, Horace’s Ode 3.30 opens with the claim, ‘I have built a monument more lasting than bronze’, celebrating the power of (his) words to outlive any conventional monument. And Horace may well have been right. While we still read his poetry today, our cities are filled with monuments (bronze or otherwise), many of which have long since become ‘part of the furniture’, their original power and significance invisible to contemporary audiences. Across the UK and internationally, communities are also beginning to debate whether monuments to certain individuals or events (most recently Cecil Rhodes in Oxford) should be de-commissioned – a contemporary expression of the longstanding practice of toppling statues of hated rulers.
Featuring new work by 7 artists working in Scotland and internationally, More Lasting than Bronze explored what or how we choose to publicly commemorate, through a diverse series of interventions and propositions, whether exploring new forms of monument, or reflecting on those things which we choose to forget (or forget to remember).
Participating Artists:
Dazzle Ship: Ciara Phillips: Every Woman
Jonathan Owen: Untitled
Bani Abidi: Memorial to Lost Words
Graham Fagen: A Drama in Time
Sally Hackett: The Fountain of Youth
Roderick Buchanan: Understanding versus Sympathy
Olivia Webb: Voices Project
Further Reading on Ciara Phillips, Every Woman: Sight Unseen, Declan Long & The History of Dazzle Ships, Steve Farrar.
Platform: 2016
The 2016 edition of our dedicated showcase for artists at the beginning of their careers was selected from an open call by artists Ross Sinclair and Rachel Maclean, and included:
The Brownlee Brothers
Paloma Proudfoot & Aniela Piasecka
Dorian Jose Braun
Jack Saunders
View the Platform: 2016 Booklet:
Partner Exhibitions
William Gillies & John Maxwell at City Art Centre
Jennifer Bailey: Will I make a Good Father, Mother, Sister? and Simon and Tom Bloor: Viewing Structure for the City Observatory at Collective
The Scottish Endarkenment at Dovecot
ECA Masters Degree Show 2016 and Beverley Hood: Eidolon at Edinburgh College of Art
Donovan & Siegel at Edinburgh Printmakers
Kenny Hunter: Reproductive!, Sian Robinson Davies: Conversations and Raphael Rubinstein: The Miraculous at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Damián Ortega at Fruitmarket Gallery
Jonathan Owen at Ingleby
I still believe in miracles at Inverleith House
Christian Boltanski: Sombras, Les Archives du Coeur and Animitas; Hayley Tomkins and Caroline Mesquita at Jupiter Artland
Celts at National Museum of Scotland
Alt-w / Alt-w: Blush Response by New Media Scotland with Travelling Gallery
Goulash at The Number Shop
Barbara Rae CBE RA RE: Return Journey at Open Eye Gallery
Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden at The Queen’s Gallery
Still life with flying objects at Rhubaba
Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny / Monet / Van Gogh at Scottish National Gallery
Surreal Encounters: Collecting the Marvellous and ARTIST ROOMS Joseph Beuys A Language of Drawing at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Facing the World: Self-portraits Rembrandt to Ai Weiwei and Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2015 at Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Jo Spence at Stills
Alice Neel: The Subject and Me and Jess Johnson: Electrc Panoptic at Talbot Rice Gallery
Hayley Tompkins at Jupiter Artland | Hayley Tompkins, Installation view Electric Magnetic Installation Image: courtesy of The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow, 2015. I still believe in miracles at Inverleith House | Juergen Teller, William Eggleston 1, Memphis, 2004 Image: courtesy of the artist. Jonathan Owen at Ingleby | Jonathan Owen: Eraser Drawing (Audrey Hepburn), 2016 Partially erased book page, 28 x 22.9cm page size Image: courtesy of the Artist and Ingleby, Edinburgh. Damian Ortega at The Fruitmarket Gallery | Damian Ortega: from the series Lava Waves, 2016 Image: courtesy of the artist and kurimanzutto, Mexico City. Donovan & Siegel at Edinburgh Printmakers | Donovan & Siegel, Self-Printing Book Image: courtesy of artists. Beverley Hood: Eidolon at Edinburgh College of Art | Photo: Lindsay Perth.
Pop-Up Exhibitions and Events
P+P at Pack and Send
Deveron Arts and Walking Institute: Walking Women and All Roads Lead to Venice
Supporting Act at DOK Artist Space
Bartholomew’s Waltz at Gayfield Creative Spaces
Helen McCrorie: The Clock in Commune at The Glasite Meeting House
Oliver Braid: The Old Mechanics
CONCRETE at Scottish Poetry Library
Steve Pettengell: And to you
Ruth Barker: Place of Pillars, commissioned by ATLAS Arts
Kimberley O’Neill: Conatus TV at Telfer Gallery
MAP: Endnotes