Talbot Rice Gallery,
Edinburgh until May 9th
The totemic properties
of the natural world and the strains of ecologically inclined sci-fi course
through this group show of twelve international artists, whose work is gathered
across the Talbot Rice as a kind of global village come home to roost under the
same roof. The show’s title is drawn from The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo
Collodi’s nineteenth-century folk-tale about a wooden puppet boy who comes to
life, spreading fake news in a way that causes his nose to grow. Those
reclaiming the truth here do so in the face of climate deniers, colonialists
and corporate puppets, while those pulling their strings keep their distance.
The semi-circle of
tribal masks that stand at the centre of the downstairs gallery suggests a
ritual space amplified by drones from above. Set against the backdrop of Chilean
artist Johanna Unzueta’s cartoon-styled mural, Resonance (2020), inspired by
women weavers in Mexico, Canadian First Nation artist Alan Hunt’s Atlakim Masks
(2019) is a show of strength that relates to the indigenous Kwakwaka’wakw community’s
Dance of the Forest Spirits ceremony. Next door, Haegue Yang’s The Intermediate
(2015-2020) is a series of seven inter-connected straw and steel sculptures that
form a structure part pagan altar, part spaceship.
The five short
documentary films by Puerto Rican artist Beatriz Santiago Munoz are mind-expanding
forces of nature that highlight landscapes that exist beyond the hangover of
Spanish rule. From natural psychedelics in Farmocopea (2013) to the aftermath
of natural disasters in Gosila (2018) and the quasi-mystical good-natured
ramblings of the last survivor of a 1960s commune in Matrulla (2014), a woozy
alchemy pervades across a world turning slowly out of joint.
This makes TOPIARY JIG
(2020), Glasgow-based German artist Torsten Lauschmann’s remarkable kinetic
stage show installation quite a culture shock, as choreographed crutches and
other disability aids cut across by laser displays and animated trees to
suggest a form of evolution beyond flesh and blood.
The monochrome spheres
in the seven works that make up French artist Laurent Grasso’s Studies into the
Past (2013-2019) reflect those in OttO (2018), a video that fuses ancient,
modern and mythical. Its sweep through aboriginal lands suggests space invaders
from all kinds, as the electronic drones of its soundtrack creates a holy mantra
of sorts. Beside it, Kevin Mooney’s Apparition (2018) and other paintings tap
into the ghosts in the machine of occupied country close to home.
With other pan-global
work by Taryn Simon, Beau Dick, Firelei Baez, Lois Weinberger and Ana Mendieta
on show, Pine’s Eye is a collection of fourth world possibilities of alternate
futures, in which getting back to nature is itself an act of defiance.
Scottish Art News, Spring 2020
ends
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