Summerhall until September 27th 2012
4 stars
There is no more perfect show to illustrate where Summerhall has come
from than this vast display of avant-garde detritus culled from the
even vaster archive of the Edinburgh-based Heart Fine Art set-up. From
John and Yoko to Gilbert and George to Jake and Dinos Chapman,
everybody's here in an eminently tactile but tantalisingly untouchable
display of all the abstract art-stars that made the twentieth century.
Books, badges, manifestos, pamphlets, calling cards, provocations, an
inevitable first edition of Guy Debord's 'La Societe du Spectacle', a
Warhol print and a Fluxus game by George Brecht are all in the frame in
this gloriously jumbled-up and refreshingly non-digital display of
parallel universe memorabilia.
Seen together, it's as obsessive a collection as the artists it gathers
for a fantasy salon that the Swiss cheese of the original Cabaret
Voltaire Dadaist boys club in Zurich could only wet-dream of. If seeing
the words 'KILL THE POP ART!' is contrary given the context, the legend
'Fuck Joseph Beuys' is just asking for trouble in a cabinet of
curiosities that presents a crucial alternative art history treasure
trove.
The List, August 2012
ends
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