Skip to main content

New Work Scotland Project 2008 – Lila De Magalhaes

Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, September 27-December 20 2008

Over the last nine years, autumn at The Collective has heralded in an annual showcase for artists making their solo show debuts under the wing of the gallery’s New Work Scotland Project. The first of three shows this year is by Lila de Magalhaes, whose performance-based video installations captured the imaginations of this year’s judging panel, led by The Collective’s Kirsten Body, who helped sift through more than 200 applications.

“Lila says she’s about tapping into people’s day-to-day playfulness,” according to Body, “and quite often there’s a domestic or office setting in her work, but there’s usually something unsettling and strange going on as well. There’s a certain crudeness in what Lila does. Her works are usually done with a hand-held camera, and are full of jump-cuts. But it’s a deliberate strategy, and a lot of it is very subtle.”

To illustrate the quirks of De Magalhaes’ work, Body cites a work called ‘Rat,’ in which a woman dressed up as a tinfoil-clad rodent sits in a bath. In another, a woman holds court in an armchair wearing an upside-down lampshade on her head. De Magalhaes is currently making new work for her show in residence at London’s Studio Voltaire, who have also come on board with NWSP.

In the following two NWSP shows, Alex Dordoy will explore issues of masculinity via images of a Wild West chuck wagon, while a joint work by Alex Gross and Sandy Smith will takes its impulse from an extended research visit to Texas and Utah. A publication will accompany shows with texts by Kelly Connor. This initiative is now a crucial component of NSWP, which has a strong record of picking up on emerging artists who go on to even greater things, including Katy Dove, Craig Coulthart and Neil Clements. The award too is something of an accidental benchmark for current trends.

“We’re always looking for some kind of individuality,” Body says, “and work that may not immediately get supported elsewhere. In that way, NWSP is an important snap-shot of what’s going on now."

The List, September 2008

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL