Four stars
The figure of Eduardo Paolozzi towers over the contemporary art world as much as his seven-metre tall sculpture of ‘Vulcan’ (1998-1999), Roman god of fire, does in its permanent residence in Modern Two’s café named after the artist. The Leith born pop auteur’s presence is similarly embedded into Edinburgh’s cityscape, be it through public sculptures, the locally brewed beer named after him, the football shirt for Leith Athletic, or the magnificent recreation of his studio in Modern Two.
The latter is the perfect conduit for this centenary exhibition, which rolls out sixty works that not only channel the throwaway detritus of Paolozzi’s collages, but show how his ultra moderne designs made their mark beyond the gallery. This is spread across two ground floor rooms, a library and a couple of corridor showcases. The first room, Paris & London, shows off some of his 1950s collages, sculptures, screenprints and experiments with ink. The second room, Pattern & Print, leaps forward a couple of decades by way of tapestries, screenprints and plates. The library lays out fragments from his commissioned mosaic for Tottenham Court Road underground station.
The result is a multi-coloured machine age selection box of imagery that animated its surroundings beyond gallery walls to become part of the everyday experience. This gives a glimpse of how Paolozzi mixed and matched the pop culture clutter he was immersed in, defining its time even as it points to the brave new world ahead. (Neil Cooper)
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two) until 21stApril.
The List, March 2023
ends
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