Summerhall, Edinburgh
3 stars
The title of this new
show of sixteen watercolours hung all too appropriately in
Summerhall's wood-panelled Dean's Room may sound lifted from a 1960s
Cold War spy caper, but its depictions of books and documents all
bundled up with brown paper and string are even more intriguing. The
Esterhazy family archive is stored in Forchenstein, south of Vienna
in twenty-five vaulted rooms in the basement of an ancient fortress.
Buchanan's excavation not only captures the meticulous intricacy of
the endeavour, but, seems to tap in too to the whole notion of
archiving as art so much in vogue right now. Yet, by observing it at
first remove, as Buchanan does here, there's a gimlet-eyed
objectivity to his studies as much as there is warmth.
While there are hints
of Beauysian-styled detritus on show acknowledged in the title of
one of the larger works hung on the walls beside Summerhall's
staircase, framing the archives in impressionistic paintings like
this makes them less austere and self-consciously mysterious. The
light and shade in each painting bathes the bundles in a romantic
glow that gives each package a mythological air to savour.
The List, July 2013
ends
Comments