Art

Need inspiration for what to see at the Festival this week? Here’s a round-up of this week’s must-see shows according to our critic, Andrew Eaton-Lewis

In the unusual/unlikely venue stakes, Pittenweem Arts Festival rivals Edinburgh’s Fringe. With the focus here on visual arts, the East Neuk village’s 70-odd “galleries” include the fishing-fleet’s net loft, mediaeval underground vaults, a former communal laundry and the harbourmaster’s office, together with local homes, garages, conservatories and summerhouses, adding a wholesale doors-open aspect - paradise for the nosy - to the event’s myriad charms.

A row has broken out between a top Scottish architect and a Russian rival over the design of a controversial skyscraper near St Petersburg.

“IS IT really scary,” asked a woman pushing a pram, at the end of our health and safety briefing outside the entrance to the Clyde Tunnel. “Naw,” said the security man confidently. The collective shoulders of our small group sagged a little in disappointment. What about the monsters?

Now returned to Festival Square after its outing on St Andrew Square in 2017, the Edinburgh International Festival’s 2018 Opening Event remains one of the communal highpoints of the festival.

It has been an upsetting few months for the many fans of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his unique art nouveau style.

The imprisoned poets in Shilpa Gupta’s immersive installation are among the stars of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival

Thirty photos taken during last year’s Fringe feature in the Summerhall exhibition by Ryan Walls.

He famously went from making demos in in his bedroom to become one of the world's most successful recording artists.

Stabilisation work is under way at the Mackintosh Building as efforts continue to make the fire-hit art school safe.

Emil Nolde had a conflicted identity. He was born in 1867 in the flat and featureless country between the North Sea and the Baltic on the border between Denmark and Germany. His father was German, his mother Danish. He spoke both Danish and German, but neither very well, apparently.

Pearl Blauvelt lived alone in a remote village in north-east Pennsylvania in the 1940s and 1950s. Half a century later, in her abandoned house, a box was found containing hundreds of drawings which are now held by a gallery in New York and have been shown at MoMA. She drew in pencil. Often she made densely worked copies of goods for sale in mail order catalogues, but she also drew houses and streets. Walls were often transparent, revealing rooms, furniture and occasionally people within, and perspectives collapsed on to one another. We know nothing about what she intended, but she drew an ordered, comfortable, domestic world.

If you were shown Jack Knox’s 1968 painting How it is devoid of context, without an artist’s name, era or location, you might find yourself momentarily nonplussed. I confess I might. Was this painted in the East Village, by an artist playing around on the cusp of abstract expressionism and pop art? Or by a postgraduate student in Glasgow the week before last?

Since the contemporary visual art programme at Mount Stuart began 16 years ago, an impressive array of artists have made work in response to the neo-gothic country retreat of the Marquesses of Bute, its collections and its history. Christine Borland was one of the first, in 2003, and is the first to return for a second bite at the cherry.

We asked you to send us your favourite pictures illustrating sums up the perfect summer’s day is for our readers, and boy you didn’t disappoint!

Work to dismantle the dangerous parts of the Mackintosh building at Glasgow School of Art is continuing this week, with the aim of stabilising the remaining structure so local residents can return to their homes and businesses.