When I was at Tate Modern recently, I went into the space of the turbine hall. I wasn't overly impressed by the installation by Richard Tuttle, but I was very pleased to see the ghost of "Shibboleth". This was an installation by Doris Salcedo - maybe not so much an installation as an "exstillation", the removal of part of the floor to create a vast ( Read more... )

I did a bit of the Art Festival today.

I went to Wind Pipes for Edinburgh, an installation in a former church (a wonderful space off the Royal Mile which I didn't know existed!). An organ playable by visitors, made of bits of waste pipes. The deep notes had a very breathy sound, almost alive. It was driven by huge bellows, and I thought it was ( Read more... )

I don't often take photographs of art-works, because there is little that a photographer can add ( Read more... )

I have blogged elsewhere about some of the events I went to in the Edinburgh Science Festival this year, but the first talk I went to seemed to fit better here than there.

It was about "Patterns in Nature", though it was more about how we use nature's patterns to create non-natural forms in art and engineering. As Neil Cooper, the chair, said, ( Read more... )

I forgot to include these in my post on public art in Edinburgh yesterday...

St Bernard's Well.


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There is a lot of public art in Edinburgh: installations and sculpture that one sees just walking about the city, some though not all left over from the Festival. I took some photographs recently ( Read more... )

Near my flat is a former church called the Mansfield Traquair. Built as a "Catholic Apostolic church", it was decorated with murals by Anna Phoebe Traquair. Long since decomissioned and having had an err... lively existence, the murals have been restored.

It is a remarkable building.


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"Speed of Light" was an interesting experience: simultaneously brilliant and disappointing. NVA, the company behind it, have worked a lot with light in the environment (their installation at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 2008, " Spirit", was beautiful, and I heard great things about their work in Skye and Glen LyonSpeed of Light is hard to ( Read more... )

I’ve just been to the Lucian Freud retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, and I have a lot of somewhat contradictory views about his work. This isn’t surprising, since the exhibition spans seventy years - the first painting, a self portrait, dates from 1940 (when Freud was only 18), the last, an portrait of his studio assistant, unfinished ( Read more... )

I love Tate Modern, on Bankside. The view across to St Paul's Cathedral and the City is amazing, but the building itself - a former power station designed by Gilbert Scott - has an austere, industrial beauty.


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