Coffee-Table Notes

Tate Britain’s announcement in April that Jasleen Kaur (b.1986) has been shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize continues Scotland’s relationship with the high profile art award. Kaur appears on the list for the Turner’s 40 th  year for Alter Altar (2023), the Scottish-Indian artist’s large-scale exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow. Also on the shortlist are Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas. With a £25,000 prize at stake, this year sees the Turner return to Tate Britain for the first time in six years.  For Alter Altar, Kaur was praised by the Turner judges for an exhibition that channelled her experience of growing up in Pollokshields, the multi-racial area of Glasgow where Tramway is situated. The exhibition used sound, sculpture and pop cultural references across continents to look at colonialism and cultural identity in a deeply personal fashion. Components included family photographs, an Axminster carpet, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells. At the exhibition’s centr...

When Arthur Melville died in 1904, the Forfarshire born artist left behind a life as rich in incident and colour as that in his paintings, several of which are held as part of the Fleming-Wyfold collection. The Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh highlighted Melville’s importance as an artist in 2015 and 2016 with the tellingly named exhibition, Arthur Melville: Adventures in Colour.   In death too, it seems, Melville’s legacy continues, as a plan to restore his desecrated grave in rural Surrey in South East England runs on apace. This follows the discovery of a broken headstone for Melville’s grave by Jon Leech of the Brookwood Cemetery Society, the voluntary body who, with full support from the surviving members of Melville’s family, are seeking support from collectors of his work to help them restore the grave to its former glory.    Melville’s grave isn’t in Brookwood Cemetery itself, but, as explained by BCS founding member John M. Clarke in his book, London’s Nec...

    Alberta Whittle is announced today as Scotland’s official representation at the 2022 La Biennale di Venezia. Whittle’s Glasgow International curated exhibition is set to take place at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello as part of the 59 th  Venice Biennale.   The announcement by Creative Scotland on behalf of the National Lottery and Scottish Government backed Scotland + Venice partnership comes at the end of a remarkable year for the Glasgow based artist. During 2020, Whittle was one of ten artists to be awarded a Turner Bursary. The Glasgow School of Art graduate also received this year’s Frieze Artist Award and a Henry Moore Artist Foundation Award.   Born in Barbados in 1980, Whittle’s work in film, sculpture, print, performance and installation is often made in response to current events, and frequently draws on her research into the African diaspora and the decolonisation of Western histories.   Whittle’s work has been shown in group and so...

The cancellation of 2020 degree shows by all four of Scotland’s art schools due to the Covid 19/Coronavirus pandemic has curtailed a rites of passage that ordinarily makes for one of the liveliest weeks in the summer artistic calendar. With input from students and lecturers alike, all four main art schools in Scotland are attempting to plug the gap with an online presence that showcases the work of graduating students as best they can. Glasgow School of Art has already launched its  online showcase , while Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Edinburgh College of Art and Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen will all be hosting virtual shows between now and July. While all four schools emphasise the involvement of graduating students in the showcases, a nationwide ‘pause or pay’ campaign has called into question the wisdom of art schools going ahead with them while charging full tuition fees.   Pause or Pay UK   is calling for the guarantee of a physical degr...

The planned reopening of the University of St Andrews’ flagship Wardlaw Museum scheduled for April following a £2.1 million overhaul has been postponed in light of the current Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Formerly known as the Museum of the University of St Andrews’ (MUSA), the extended and remodelled Wardlaw was due to open its first exhibition, Philip Colbert: The Death of Marat and the Birth of the Lobster. This was by St Andrews philosophy graduate turned neo-pop surrealist Colbert, and was set to run alongside highlights from the Museum’s extensive permanent collection. Drawing on the University’s 115,000 or so objects of national and international significance featured in shows at both the Wardlaw and the Bell Pettigrew Museum of Natural History, when the Wardlaw eventually opens, it will feature work not previously seen on display. These include a Thai silver zodiac bowl, prototype LEDs developed in the 1970s, detailed models of flowers and plants, and a telegram from NAS...