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Between poles and tides

Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh until May 6th
Three stars

In difficult times, getting back to nature is one solution, as demonstrated in some of the works on show in this group-based exhibition of new acquisitions from the University of Edinburgh art collection. Things aren't always as they seem, however, in the series of paintings, video, publications and sound-based works, as the leopard's face looking out from Zane (2013), Isobel Turley's two-second video loop of this most endangered of species suggests. Filmed in Edinburgh Zoo, Zane's steely gaze may suggest he is guarding the other exhibits, when in fact he has been immortalised in another, more Sisyphean form of captivity. The voice-over of another video, Daisy Lafarge's Not For Gain (2016) hints at an even more invidious form of social control.

The row of wall-clocks in Katie Paterson's Timepieces (Solar System) (2014) points to the global interplay between such things, while her Paterson's Future Library (2014-2114) bends time and space even more. With nature and revolution coalescing in three pieces by Ian Hamilton Finlay, a work's chief protagonists spookily rubbed out in Jonathan Owen's Eraser Drawings (2014-16) and the University's digital collection repurposed in Fabienne Hess' Zebras, Blanks and Blobs (2017), this cross-generational showcase points to a quiet concern for worlds beyond the gallery's borders.

The List, March 2017

ends

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