Kenny Hunter


In Kurt Vonnegut’s book 'Slaughterhouse Five', an alien remarks that the flaw in Jesus’ story was that he was the son of the most powerful being in the universe. For the alien, the moral of Jesus’ life thus became; "before you kill somebody make sure he isn’t well connected". In the aliens alternate gospel Jesus is a bum who is adopted by God. God then warns that he will destroy anybody who torments a bum with no connections.

I don’t know if Kenny Hunter is well connected, but his receipt of the £50,000commission (a large proportion was for production costs) for sculpting a contemporary figure of Christ, must have made him gaze fondly at the heavens. Hunter’s Jesus, while not obviously a bum, is an attempt to humanise the son of God. He’s ethnically correct and has elongated hands to stress his carpentry background. Of course this kind of demythologising is nothing new. Caravaggio after all, painted a chubby Christ with greasy hair.

Technically Hunter’s Jesus is all clean lines and smooth modeling, appealing to the present penchant for Ikea modernity. It has the look of an expensive religious toy, no doubt the Simpsons Ned Flanders would give it to his children. The cartoon edge could be construed as a sly hint that the piece is ‘making a point’ about the commodifcation of Christianity. Lets hope not, it would smack of the kind of hypocrisy that regularly inflamed Jesus.

This piece deserves some political and artistic controversy.
Apart from the absence of much imagination in the commission / artwork, the representation of a Christian icon in a new millennium of overt secularism and multi culturalism grates. That the level of funding is a substantial chunk of the cites annual fund for purchasing a variety of contemporary art, only deepens the insult.

Lost Ark


"Lost Ark" at the C.C.A. is the latest incarnation of that highly desirable art world commodity, the themed group show curated by a hired gun. Featuring the work of a gaggle of artists, collectively taking a gander at the relationship between humanity and nature, it is the off spring of that highly evolved scholar Francis McKee.

"Lost Ark" isn't a show boiling over with rage at transnational corporations acts of eco destruction, instead it aims for a reflective, thought provoking approach, mediating on how artists use representations of the animal world to allude to "deeper concerns about society and nature".

Unlike McKee's previous package "Phenomenon" many of the works in "Lost Ark" avoid the pitfall of ending up purely illustrating his schema. This coupled with the simultaneous showcasing of other artists animal related videos (William Wegman's the highlight) and a season of mainstream monster blockbusters at the G.F.T. ( Jaws, Piranha), ensure this is a show worthy of the attention of Scottish primates everywhere.


Hong Kong Island


The impossible and the hypothetical are here, now!!. Transmission gallery's latest exhibition "Hong Kong Island", showcases ten artists responses to the question of what constitutes an unrealisable project. Their answers, which are to be found in the political, personal and psychological realms deserve more than two hundred and fifty words, but that's impossible, so here are some choice cuts.

Kate Gray is offering you all unconditional love on 0141 552 1577. I advise all male 'members' to ring this number now; it may prove a more rewarding experience than lavishing your own unconditional love on twenty-two strangers every Saturday. Alan Currall's video documents his parents instructions on how to survive when the ship literally goes down. In a rare instance of useful parental advice, Mr. Currall senior details how to drink the blood of a captured seagull. Beat that !

Billy Clark gets you about as close as you'll ever get to the front door of number ten Downing Street and Simon Polli exhibits a drawing of a block of flats on wheels ( the council already have plans to use this as part of solving urban decay). The other pipe dreamers, Chris Evans, Kevin Kelly, Aoise Farren, Dave Wilkinson, Clare Barclay and Andy Miller have all doodled away admirably, and with the addition of the unabombers manifesto, this is a rich stew.

Now I've been in their dreams, so they can be in mine. Waking up in a cold sweat, I saw an exhibition of all the rejected proposals for shows in Scotland last year. Now that would be interesting, but that's another story......

Joy Joy


"Joy Joy " at Transmission Gallery, is a steaming heap of amateurish rubbish perpetuated by a bunch of technically inept fools. It’s also the best thing on in Glasgow at present.


Paul McCarthy's "Painter" video, follows the antics of a phallic, rubber nosed, cartoon like, macho painter, as he gives 'birth' to his latest masterpiece. Although the macho painter is now somewhat of a lame target, the video stills manages to be funny and disturbing.


Gitte Villesen's hand held video of a night at the fair with several drunken Scandinavian youths is a compelling look at a little observed species. The swaying head of one particularly delirious imbecile is something I want to forget, unfortunately like the after effects of Thunderbird wine it won't go away.

This show isn't gratuitously serious nor does it have quality stamped all over it, instead it finds meaning and signification in unlikely places. Joy o Joy.

Jim Lambie Transmission Gallery


During the renaissance artists sought to bring people closer to god through the painting of gigantic ceiling murals depicting the spiritual world. In the twentieth century artists such as Jackson Pollock tried to wrench this emancipatory realm from the ceiling to the floor and back onto the wall. Now Jim Lambie in a spirit of everyday vulgarisation has finally wrestled it onto the ground. In what is a spectacularly ambitious act of workmanship, he and a team of assistants have covered the floor of Transmission Gallery with a multi coloured, intoxicating pattern of garish vinyl strips.

Like many contemporary artists Lambie’s piece, intentionally or not, straddles and oscillates between the academically solidified legacy of modernist formalism and a more socially engaged concern with cultural forms existing outside the parameters of high art. While modernists could wax lyrical about the references to all over, autonomous abstract art, to artists such as Frank Stella for example, die hard devotees of hallucinogenic drugs could sight his psychedelic pattern as a lift of pad to storm heaven.

While much high modernism was and still is superior about its lofty ambitions, Lambie’s show contains a humorous, implicit celebration of the more mundane pursuits of the down at heel. Picasso, the mythical self aggrandising ‘hero’ of modernism, once said "that no one wants to follow someone who walks with their eyes fixed on their feet", Lambie thankfully has no problem celebrating the aimless wanderings of the confused, alienated or tripping prophet dropout.

 
Henry VIII Wives - C.C.A.

In a culture increasingly nervous about taking gambles, the C.C.A.’s choice of Henry VIII Wives for a solo show seemed an unusually brave, and frankly refreshing move. The strongest articulation of the loss of artistic nerve which has plagued the art world has been the omnipotent popularity of the group show; from a marketing angle the group show allows for all the right bases to be hit and ticked off, after all you’re bound to find something you like...Henry IIIV wives use and abuse this popularity; they are after all a group show in themselves. However, they pervert the sleeve wearing plurality and multiplicity claims of the group show, by fusing their individual practice into a mutating, group mind pushed to its omega point.

Within the context of the Glasgow artworld this show is many ways the proverbial breath of fresh air. In recent years it’s increasingly become apparent that Glasgow’s problem has been the depth of the shadow cast by the popularity of its international art stars. Rigid paradigms of success have fostered a climate where too much attention is being lavished on the yea or nah of the godfathers of Scottish art. Too inward looking, the slavish following of a house style, with knowing stylistic nods, too exclusively to Scottish neo conceptualism, had started to stagnate the pool. Henry IIIV Wives however have managed to simultaneously borrow from what is good about Scottish art, while stealing (I don’t use this term pejoratively; as Picasso said "minor artists borrow, major ones steal" and there’s been too much borrowing of late) from artists from outside. One noticeable source is Bruce Nauman, this show is in much of its absurdist minimalism very Naumanesque, but that isn’t a bad thing. Rather this actual engagement with his practice has led to the group producing the best piece of work I’ve seen in Glasgow in the last one or two years.

In the first room of the C.C.A you will find a large scale video projection. It is immediately a startling experience, which has a clarity of communication all too often lacking in contemporary art. Suspended from the ceiling by harnesses, the seven artists sway back and forth in a human replication of Newton’s cradle. The cradle is usually made up of equally sized metallic balls which once activated tap back and forth, transferring their energy through the chain in a spiraling descent into motionless. An iconic stamp of seventies designer cool, it’s now largely an item of kitsch nostalgia. Henry IIV Wives version has none of the stylish minimalism, just a hefty dose of perverse, absurd, funny pathos and bathos. As the human body isn’t designed to work in Newton’s cradle, the spectacle comes from the sight of one of the artist’s futility crashing into his comrades. In the lulls between attempts at perfect equilibrium, the artists sway back and forth, like outsized babies in weird S/M gear. It’s hard not be affected by the multitude of resonance’s this piece generates.

The rest of the work inevitably suffers by comparison. There are a few ideas here that probably shouldn’t be. But even this reaction is tempered. The fact there are ‘mistakes’ is great - it means chances have been taken, probably exactly the kind that resulted in the cradle piece. Having said that the Mark Thomas like coca-cola piece is hilarious. I laughed out loud in the gallery, something I’ve never done in the C.C.A. By God it felt good. Kill the cop inside and go get yourself a bit of "Civil Disobedience".
 

Sex – Street Level


Sex isn’t very popular in the Scottish art world. Well at least "Sex", the theme of the 3rd Fotofeis festival isn’t, judging by the limited participation of prominent Scottish spaces. You could be forgiven for thinking this strategic withdraw, is indicative of a prurient backlash; in fact I think the truth is that the lack of quality work deterred many from taking the plunge. Certainly Street Levels show, which features the work of Eva Schlegal and Itsi Haider bears this out.

Prior to visiting the show I was quite intrigued by the description of Schlegal’s photographs. They purported to show male brothel clients camouflaged by fake beards having sexual intercourse. A naked Groucho Marx came to mind. I was disappointed therefore, that despite painstakingly searching amongst the interlocking genitalia I was unable to find one hint of a fake beard.

Schelgal asserts that what she found interesting (by implication what we should find interesting) about these found photographs is that despite being taken at the height of the sexual revolution they retain a very old fashioned feel. Well who says the ‘swingeing sixties’ sexual revolution was all encompassing. Is it really that much of shock to find a brothel carried on regardless of the noises of sexual liberation ( who got the best deal out of free love anyway?). The banality of this remark, coupled with the redundant use of coloured lacquer, all point to an artist trying to hard make found material look interesting, because they know there’s nothing actually interesting about them. Stay home, either have or think about sex, it’ll be more fun.
 

Janus Programme – Transmission Gallery

Transmission in a spirit of philanthropy,have socially engineered the birth of an artistic supergroup (it had to happen, we’ve got duo’s, boy bands, girl bands etc.). Operating under the codename "The Janus Programme" these eight carbon life forms have been bestowed with the power of curators: "establish a strategy; construct an exhibition; dismantle; ".

While the intention was obviously to initiate collaboration between the artists, and to encourage them to "take on being understood/ typecast /categorised" some of them appear to have shifted their mischievous sense of humour back towards the mechanisms of the gallery itself.

Lindsay Orr has ventured into the world of new age mysticism on the galleries behalf, employing a Feng Shui consultant to organise and place the artists and artwork in the most spiritually beneficial position. Even if you regard feng shui as mystical !***, there are a couple of unintentionally, funny pointed gags made at the galleries expense (the ceiling does need some work).

Michael Wilkinson's "Hoarding" on the outside of the building is the kind of wooden fabrication which usually protects the public from extensive structural transformation, falling masonry etc. While you could read this as the kind of intervention which damages the sanctity or purity of the white cube, it’s architecturally redundant nature, does also make you wonder if another kind of facelift is being suggested.

Many of the other works, with the exception of Anne Louise Kieran’s deceptively slight narratives occasionally spitting out tiny drops of acid, all display a mix of unassuming restraint, which are perhaps just a fraction too modest for their own good. That said, these artists are at least true to their name giver, Janus the two faced god, who would no doubt enjoy the ambiguous, paradoxical tone of the best works on show.
 

Claude Closky - Vivre Sa Vie


As part of Vivre Sa Vie, Claude Closky has been commissioned by New Media Scotland to produce a web page. I confess to being excited by the prospect of his site. Visions of interactivity, animation, video clips, text, basically anything which might utilise the webs possibilities whizzed through my mind. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed.


I know art world insiders will tut at my comprehensive inability to get the delicious irony and subtle wit at work in Closky site, but to be frank the whole thing is a poor, thin one line joke. On typing the address, all you get, and I mean all, is a window with a recreation of the familiar domestic computer game Tetrius. Abstract blocks fall to earth, and are arranged in lines to secure points by the absent player Claude Closky. The press release throws out the dire cliché of Closky transforming the everyday into the sublime, but really it should be the everyday into the banal.


Closky deliberately trundles along the information super highway. This is the big joke and the delightful critique. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for throwing a bit of luddite mud at techno nerds, but does it have to be in such a insipid form?
 

Ed Ruscha


During the dark ages, when the iron fist of Margaret Thatcher ruled the country one artist managed to make me laugh. If this sounds trivial, like dancing on the deck of the Titanic as frozen seas swelled, it wasn’t. With everyone else scampering around gamely trying to defend themselves against the insidious evils of free enterprise, it was a blessed relief to occasionally enjoy a chortle of absurdist laughter. Ed Ruscha was the man, and the painting was, I think of the LA County Museum of Contemporary Art on fire. It’s a great painting, one of hope and humour. When I find the art world getting me down I think of it, and a smile crosses my face.


Nearly all of Ruscha’s work is filled with a similarly cool, deadpan humour. While a contemporary of many of the classic American pop artists, Ruscha's works has always revealed a more down at heel fascination with icons of the American dream. His paintings and influential photographic books are ripe with mundane pictures of gas stations and suburban homes. When Ruscha did Hollywood, instead of going for the stars and diamonds, he painted a picture of the back of the famous LA hillside sign. He also once produced a book entitled twenty-six gasoline stations which was of..well, you guessed it.


His paintings have always utilised a formally varied palette. His series of plank format landscapes, with simple divisions of sky and land and amusing lines of text were prominent during the 1970’s. In one typically cinematic widescreen panorama the isolated text ‘home’ juts out from the curved horizon on the right handside. On the far left a cluster of ominous threats ‘poison’ explosions’ ‘disease’ ‘wolves’ hover. More recently he has produced evocative, elusive monochrome paintings of silhouetted objects, often overlaid with cryptic texts. One of these majestic paintings "Jumbo" featured the hazy shape of an elephant gamely struggling to walk uphill. Its cumbersome determination was strangely affecting and touching.


Like the arrival of Jeff Koons in Edinburgh for the festival, the presence of an Ed Ruscha exhibition is welcome international serving for festival goers. At Inverleith house he will be exhibiting a series of paintings which are based on the motif of a mountain. Encoded with his trademark cryptic texts, they too will no doubt make a virtue of existing in a kind of cognitive state of flux, where meaning is never stable.


Also showing for the first time in Scotland is Austrian artist Franz West. Celebrated for his unusual papier mache sculptures and collages, West has also in recent years been presenting large-scale aluminium sculptures in outdoor settings. Four of these sculptures will be placed against the natural environment throughout the grounds of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

 

Chris Cunnigham


It’s difficult to think of many commercial video makers who enjoy the level of artistic appreciation that Chris Cunnigham receives. Usually by virtue of their association with filthy lucre and noise mongers they are discounted from serious critical attention within the hallowed halls of museum and gallery culture. But deservedly, Cunnigham has crossed the tracks. Or perhaps more importantly the tracks no longer seem to exist as they once did.


His video for Aphex Twins "Come to Daddy, literally and critically rocked the artworld in 1997 (it was shown in Family Credit at the Collective in 1998). Displaying a level of intensity all too lacking in most art videos it was hailed as a visionary snapshot of what could be done, if only artists dumped the stationary camera and obsession with slow mo. Since ‘Come to Daddy’ he has directed a series of diverse and memorable videos.


The "Windowlicker" video, again for Aphex Twin (1999was a vitriolic parody of rap videos, in which the heads of sexy ladies in small bikinis were replaced by grotesque masks of Aphex Twins Richard D. James' grotesque visage). Simultaneously disturbing and hilarious, its very presence on mainstream media was a subversive joy.
A very busy man, he’s also produced standout pieces for musicians such as Squarepusher and icons such as Madonna. He also had the dubious pleasure of working on Stanley Kubrick’s ill fated, never-ending sci fi film A1. Upcoming projects include being signed up to direct the motion picture adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer.


Last year, Cunningham descended into the art world proper. His video, ‘Flex" (2000) was one of the standout pieces at the Royal Academy's APOCALYPSE exhibition. An exploration of anatomy and sexuality it featured male and female bodies caught up in a primitive choreography. Perhaps more markedly serene, it still contained his trademark taste for disruption, most obviously in its use of Aphex Twins commissioned music. At Edinburgh College of Art Cunningham will be showing "Flex" alongside a new piece, ‘Monkey Drummer", recently premiered at the 49th Venice Biennale. Featuring an automaton of multiple limbs with the head of a monkey it too sounds suitably perverse.

Cunningham future trajectory will be worth watching. In the art world, poverty of means is often ascribed a kind of honest dignity, and those artists who use commercial techniques are frequently treated with critical distrust (Jeff Koons is a case in point). Art is after all a business which likes to surpress talk of business. Personally I think Cunningham possesses the requisite attributes to shake up the rather luddite, pedestrian tendencies of the art community. Who’s the daddy now?