Edinburgh Detours

Edinburgh Art Festival: 4th August-4th September 

While Edinburgh’s Art Festival might feel a little less high profile than the rest of the Fest, with an inundation of live comedy acts and other theatrical fare throughout August, there are citywide exhibits and events to be sought out. The diversions to galleries and public artworks provide a welcome break from the packed streets where flyers for five-star-rave-review-comics are thrust towards you every few feet. In addition to a variety of institutional and independent galleries there is a focus on creating unique experiences for festivalgoers, encouraging audiences to see more of Edinburgh and creating opportunities for cross-pollination between the many art forms present during this month. 

Works including Martin Creed’s ‘Work No.1059’ at the Scotsman’s Steps and Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan’s ‘The Indirect Exchange of Uncertain Value’ in the esteemed grounds of Fettes College* directly intervene in the landmarks of the historical city. These works take you off the beaten track, in one case a short cut through the inner-city streets and the other a meandering trip past the Royal Botanical Gardens and out of town. 

Creed’s newly unveiled commission is a composition in marble. Just a short walk from the Fruitmarket Gallery, which held a major retrospective of the Turner Prize winning Scot last year, are the newly reopened Scotsman’s Steps. Every one of the 104 steps of the spiral staircase is rendered in a different marble. The variation is truly astonishing, the many colours, textures and complexity of the patterns in the polished surfaces suggesting the diverse origins of these stones. 

Once you have experienced this work a first time an unexpected but enjoyable feature is to watch the different reactions of those who have grown accustomed to the work, sprinting to its upper heights, and those with fresh eyes who are caught completely off guard by the unexpected spectacle amidst the drabber sandstone surroundings. 

Tatham and O’Sullivan’s two large colourful sculptures situated directly outside the front entrance of the castle-like Fettes are absurd and joyful, a giant stripy grinning cat in red and matching boot in blue. Creed’s work is in a sense more truly public as it can be viewed from 5am-midnight, whereas Fettes closely guarded privacy mean that the only way to view both cat and boot, as well as the works by Chris Evans and Elizabeth Price hidden within them, is to book a place on one of the tours that are taking place daily throughout August.  

The tours are organised by Collective, the gallery that developed this project in collaboration with Tatham and O’Sullivan and organised an accompanying symposium on the subject of ‘The Performance of Public Art’. The artists are playful with the notion of public art in the context of this institution with strict rules that prevents access to any of the buildings for those who are not staff or students. A second work by Evans makes the most direct reference to the specificity of the site by placing a plaque within the off limits reception of the fee-paying school. This plaque bearing the legend ‘New Rules’ is cast in bronze and embellished with ornate details. It is never seen but experienced by the audience through the detailed description delivered by tour guides. From this overly complex explanation I was left both convinced of exactly how the plaque would appear and doubtful of its existence.  

Within the Fruitmarket Gallery I was lucky enough to catch another tour delivered by comedian Josie Long, or rather ‘Detour’ as the five events featuring Long, as well as musician Aiden Moffat, poet Ross Sutherland and performers Nigel Barrett and Louise Mari have been billed by Trigger the producers of these ‘impromptu happenings’. 

Long does not claim to be an expert on the artist Ingrid Calame, on the particular type of abstract cartographic drawings and paintings she produces, or on art of any type at all. But that is besides the point and also exactly the point; Long’s interpretation of the artwork she encounters in the exhibition is as meaningful as any other because she comes at it with an enthusiasm. She has a willingness to converse with the work bringing her own experiences into her understanding of their meaning. While this is as it should be, the spectators make the pictures after all; it is something I often find lacking in gallery talks. 

The exhibition showcased Calame’s output from 1997-2011, produced by tracing marks on the ground, picking up graffiti, stains and cracks and then layering and re-layering these tracings through the use of different colours and mediums. Rather than focusing on facts, although they were lightly sprinkled throughout the twenty or so minutes that Long spoke for, there was instead a call to take a particular message from these colourful abstracts and apply it to our everyday lives. Namely, to look more.  

We were given a list of things to do in a new city, apt during a festival that sees an influx of thousands, including deciding to notice, walking more, breaking routines and changing our minds about what we are interested in. Not earth shattering but interwoven with these straightforward tips were a story of a boring place brought alive for Long by unexpected connections to great composers, a synopsis of ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ and Neil Gaiman’s ‘Neverwhere’, references to the work of George Shaw, the drawing of a map of the local shops near her home in London and an appeal to take the time to ‘approach the world like a melancholy French poet.’  

In the context of an exhibition that based on a small image in a brochure I had already written off as not my sort of thing I was considerably inspired by Long’s words. If I was so ready to dismiss this, then what else was I missing out on? It is my firm belief that art returns what you bring to it. While I am not suggesting that forcibly making yourself view artwork searching for meaning is a worthwhile approach, Long and the whole ‘Detour’ initiative reminded me that being interesting is often about being interested.    

Long had the previous week given a similar talk about Ellie Harrison’s ‘A Brief History of Privatisation’, which is showing within the exhibition ‘Left to my own Devices’ at Inspace, that I unfortunately arrived in Edinburgh to late for. Luckily there is an interview between the comedian and the artist available here:

My time in Edinburgh was substantially enriched by the Art Festival, which by much more than I am able to discuss here took me beyond the tourist attractions. Big name artists inhabited larger galleries but it was what was in and around and embedded within the city that challenged and impressed.