2016

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 

View the Festival Guide:

View the Festival Map:

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 

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