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Linkshouse A New Home from Home for Artists on Orkney
photographers, composers and pop groups on show are effectively duetting with Clark as part of his extended ensemble. MC by initials, and master of ceremonies in everything that follows, Clark remains at its inspirational centre. Cosmic Dancer isn’t so much a retrospective, then, as a (self) portrait writ large; part living sculpture, part design for life, part choreographed chorus line of Total Art, formed from the explosion of ideas bursting forth from Clark’s personal and artistic evolution. This is what happens if you dance yourself right out of the womb. Check out the guy’s track record.
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Neil Cooper is a writer and critic based in Edinburgh
Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer
V&A Dundee 1 Riverside Esplanade, Dundee, DD1 4EZ T: (0)1382 411 611 | vam.ac.uk Open: Wednesday to Monday 10am–5pm
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Michael Clark Company in Duncan Campbell, It For Others, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist and Rodeo, London/Piraeus
2 Michael Clark & Company with The Fall in I Am Curious, Orange, 1988. Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London. ©️ Richard Haughton
3 Michael Clark in a publicity photography, 1986, ©️ Richard Haughton
4 Michael Clark, Silke Otto Knapp, Group (Formation) 2020, courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/ New York and greengrassi, London
John Patrick Byrne: A Big Adventure
Greg Thomas
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John Byrne, Guitar with painted portrait of Gerry Rafferty Private Collection ©️ John Byrne. All rights reserved. DACS 2022
2 John Byrne, Hands Up. Image courtesy of Andrew and Fiona Paterson ©️ John Byrne. All rights reserved. DACS 2022.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow Until 18 September
This new exhibition of painting, drawing and sculpture by John Patrick Byrne (b.1940) displays in prominent position a 1968 quote from GW Lennox Paterson, deputy director of Glasgow School Art: ‘Byrne is unquestionably one of the most able painters we have seen in the past 20 years. He is something of a “chameleon”. We have had paintings by him ranging from Bonnard to Picasso which the masters themselves could not have failed to admire.’ The chameleon tag perhaps predicts a critical opinion that would grow up around Byrne’s work, and which curator Martin Craig wants to acknowledge and move past early on: that there may be an absence of depth behind Byrne’s impish and prodigious play of visual styles. An early vitrine of works produced at Glasgow School of Art from 1958–63 confirms the technical ability: nudes and seated groups are endowed with a living sinuousness that many artists who remain in a sombre, naturalistic approach would envy. But from there on in the show flits enjoyably between reference points. Early works signed off in Byrne’s ‘outsider artist’ moniker ‘Patrick’ have something of the huge fleshiness of Stanley Spencer, while strange interior scenes such as ‘Jock and the Tiger Cat’ (1968) riff on surrealist iconography. There are animal studies set in dark dreamlike forests, like ‘Owl’ (c.1968), which bring to mind Henri Rousseau, while in various self-portraits and landscapes the Fauves and Impressionists are emulated with equal glee and dexterity; so too, here and there, is the dapper fin-de-siecle atmospherics of Whistler. ‘Billy Connolly and Banjo’ (1974), indicative of Byrne’s artist-to-the-stars status, sits comfortably in the pop-realist zeitgeist of the Hockney era, but sketches of family members show a tender naturalism, such as ‘Celie’ (2010). Byrne’s status as an accomplished writer for stage and TV makes sense here. Ultimately, he is a masterful inhabitant of character. The point applies both to his depiction of subject matter and his intuitive-seeming grasp of myriad compositional styles. Indeed, it’s perhaps in his thematic choices that a kind of unity emerges. With his commissions for album covers, painted banjos and guitars, and his portraits of comedians and film stars, Byrne is an acolyte of pop culture and especially pop music. He came of age in the post-modernist paradigm of the 1960s–70s, when this was a new and laudatory subject matter for fine art; and when a chameleon-like feint across formal approaches was perhaps the whole point. Certainly, the viewer won’t leave bereft of a sense of warmth, humour or playful adventure.
Greg Thomas is a critic and editor based in Glasgow
John Patrick Byrne: A Big Adventure
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Argyle Street, Glasgow, G3 8AG T: (0)141 276 9599 | glasgowlife.org.uk Open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday 10am–5pm, Friday and Sunday 11am–5pm
Bute
Abbas Akhavan: study for a garden Mount Stuart
Until 2 October W: mountstuart.com Akhavan’s first solo exhibition in Scotland sees the IranianCanadian work on a sitespecific commission reversing the gardens and interiors of Mount Stuart. Throughout the exhibition, Akhavan explores his understanding of the domestic spheres as a struggle between hospitality and hostility.
Dundee
Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer V&A Dundee
Until 4 September W: vam.ac.uk/dundee Organised by Barbican, the exhibition revisits the groundbreaking choreographer’s shaping of 1990s subculture through his creativity in dance, design and music. A figure of international cross-disciplinary influence, the show explores the Scottish trailblazer’s different facets and collaborations.
Edinburgh
Katie Paterson: Requiem Ingleby Gallery
Until 11 June W: inglebygallery.com This important exhibition sees Paterson dealing with environmental anxiety in relation to human vs geological time. For the duration of the solo show, an urn is being filled with different particles that tell the story of the life (and death) of our planet.
James Morrison: A Celebration 1932–2020 The Scottish Gallery
Until 25 June W: scottish-gallery.co.uk A major retrospective two years after the beloved Scottish artist’s passing. Includes material from the family archive and provides an intimate look into the landscape painter’s life and oeuvre, with a set of celebratory events running in parallel.
John Byrne: Ceci n’est pas une Rétrospective The Fine Art Society
Until 16 July W: thefineartsociety.com A retrospective of Paisley-born John Byrne RSA, bringing together important works from the artist’s career from the 1960s to the present. From his first exhibition while working in a Paisley carpet factory, Byrne's artistic output over six decades amounts to a pictorial autobiography.
Will Maclean: Time and Tides The Fine Art Society
22 June–16 July W: thefineartsociety.com Concurrent with the retrospective of the artist at the City Art Centre, this exhibition will showcase a selection of works, from 1980 to 2008, of box construction art and the examination of found objects.
John McLean: Flare The Fine Art Society
22 July–27 August W: thefineartsociety.com An exhibition of paintings by abstract artist John McLean (1939–2019). Colour, form and space are the core elements of his work. From the formal precision of his early work, to the free-flowing painterly expression he later developed, luminosity and rhythm run throughout.
Lorna Robertson: thoughts, meals, days Ingleby Gallery
25 June–17 September W: inglebygallery.com Glasgow-based Lorna Robertson’s first solo show at Ingleby Gallery. Expect immersive and evocative paintings, densely packed with colour and figurative allusions.
Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World Dovecot Studios
24 June–24 September W: dovecotstudios.com Major centenary celebration of the life and work of Scottish artist, jazz musician and jeweller Alan Davie (1920–2014). Curated by University of Edinburgh graduate Siobhan McLaughlin, the exhibition displays works from each decade of Davie’s artistic life and provides a unique opportunity to view previously unexhibited works from the collections of Davie’s friends and peers.
Daniel Silver Fruitmarket
11 June–25 September W: fruitmarket.co.uk Part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Fruitmarket brings to Scotland for the first time the work of acclaimed sculptor Daniel Silver, recently turned towards clay. The ceramic figures of all sizes, exhibited through The Fruitmarket’s galleries and warehouse space, speak of human connection, touch and intimacy, or the act of looking and being looked at.
Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
Until 2 October W: nationalgalleries.org The largest Hepworth survey to date, it features more than 120 works from the artist’s iconic modern sculptures to rarely seen paintings and drawings. The exhibition chronologically explores Hepworth’s personal history and interests, from dance and music to politics and science, and the way these shaped her practice.
Tracey Emin: I Lay Here for You Jupiter Artland
Until 2 October W: jupiterartland.org The YBA’s largest exhibition in Scotland since 2008, the show takes over five galleries and includes new work. Part of the exhibition is the unveiling of the six-metre bronze sculpture ‘I Lay Here For You’, installed in an old-growth beech grove at Jupiter’s gardens.
Will Maclean: Points of Departure City Art Centre
4 June–2 October W: edinburghmuseums.org.uk Also held as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, the show provides a meditative journey through Maclean’s deeply rooted universe and themes. Sculptures, drawings, found objects, videos and installation pieces all intricately weave a web of references to the artist’s long-time preoccupation with Highland people’s histories, the sea, and Scottish archaeology and architecture.
National Treasure: The Scottish Modern Arts Association City Art Centre
Until 16 October W: edinburghmuseums.org.uk A two-floor exhibition presents the collection of the Scottish Modern Arts Association, founded in Edinburgh in 1907 and now kept by the City Art Centre collection. A showcase of fine examples of Scottish art at the dawn of modernism, including the Scottish Colourists, Joan Eardley and John Duncan, presented as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.
A Taste for Impressionism: Modern French Art from Millet to Matisse Scottish National Gallery (Royal Scottish Academy)
30 July–13 November W: nationalgalleries.org Held at the RSA galleries, the exhibition tells the story of Scottish collectors and institutions’ love for the arts of the continent. Including beloved masterpieces from its impressive collection of modern French art, it also highlights the phenomenon of counterfeit within the market during the first half of the 20th century.
Glasgow
Hornel: From Glasgow to Japan Pollok House
Until 19 June W: nts.org.uk Pollok House has reopened its galleries with an exhibition of work by 'Glasgow Boy' EA Hornel, focusing on work produced after his trips to Japan at the turn of the century, and his relationship with photography. Some of the works featured are exhibited in Glasgow for the first time.
Alex Hetherington + Scott Caruth Centre for Contemporary Arts
4 June–16 July W: cca-glasgow.com This two-person show features the work of Alex Hetherington, who works with 16mm film, writing and performance, and Scott Caruth, whose practice includes photography, bookmaking and writing, most of which focuses heavily on political and social issues.
