Coming off a series of Glasgow trips, I had yet to make my way into Edinburgh, and so on my last trip down to the central belt, I spent 24 hours in each city, and how different each city is.

Only 45 minutes apart by train, the differences in attitude are immediately clear on the street level from the sudden flood of cobblestone streets, visible tourists, and men in suits. While Glasgow’s charm is its grit, Edinburgh seems to pride itself on being proper. I was been informed through various anecdotes of how different both cities would be, most memorably that Glasgow is where the art is made, but Edinburgh is where the art is shown; and while I didn’t find that to be entirely true, I did see justification for such a statement.

First stop in was The Fruitmarket Gallery with Narcissus Reflected, its current exhibition curated by academic art historians David Lomas and Dawn Ades exploring the myth of Narcissus through surrealist and contemporary work. From Ovid to Carravagio, the myth of Narcissus has been the subject of countless works, but here, the focus was turned to a modern interpretation that implicates voyeurism with narcissism. 

The main floor featured gems from early 20th century works from Western Europe and America, including a large section devoted to Salvador Dali and Jess, who is being shown here for the first time outside of America. Both artists are here revealed to be obsessed with Narcissus, as a mythical persona and in psychoanalytic terms. While these two works were given the most prominence in displaying the artistic process of communicating the Narcissus myth, I personally found the lens-based works (especially by Claude Cahun and Florence Henri) on the other side of the gallery to be more fulfilling, as while they did not directly address Narcissus, the themes of self-reflection, identity formation, lack through image, etc, were readily tangible.

Upstairs of note was an indoor version of Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden set out as a walkable path. Moving through the stainless steel orbs, the garden is of course an inversion of the Narcissus myth as the image reflected is one of grotesque distortion. Saving the best for last, my viewing companion and I literally fell into the reflection that was Pipilotti Rist’s Sip My Ocean and stayed that way for an indistinguishable amount of time. As an immersive installation, Sip My Ocean undulates between the two mirrored projections on adjacent walls, where a kaleidoscopic view of everyday objects drift to the bottom of the ocean while a woman’s floating body appears throughout the work like a spectre. The room is fitted like an oceanic cave, which may be read as a womb as the literature suggests, but the work lulls and jars, and eventually drowns you through its soundtrack. Endlessly washing over you is Rist’s own rendition of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Games, sung through a soft lounge lizard tone a la Nouvelle Vague, with the addition of Riot Grrl intensity during the shrieking of the chorus “I don’t want to fall in love”. At once hypnotic and electrifying, Rist is a master at unleashing and reeling in an intensity against her self as a body and identity, onto an utterly captive audience.

Image credit: Pipilotti Rist, Sip My Ocean, 1996. Single-channel video installation, shown using two projectors, with sound, 8 min., edition 3/3, dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by Hugo Boss on the occasion of the Hugo Boss Prize 1998, the International Director’s Council and Executive Committee Members: Edythe Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Linda Fischbach, Ronnie Heyman, J. Tomilson Hill, Dakis Joannou, Cindy Johnson, Barbara Lane, Linda Macklowe, Brian McIver, Peter Norton, Willem Peppler, Alain-Dominique Perrin, Rachel Rudin, David Teiger, Ginny Williams, and Elliot K. Wolk  98.5226. © Pipilotti Rist. Photo: Courtesy the artist, Luhring Augustine NY, and Hauser & Wirth

A stop was made into Stills Gallery, where Ruth Maclennan’s Anarcadia was on, but walking in somewhere during the loop of the eponymous film, perhaps another visit will have to made to appreciate the work, like during the Edinburgh Film Festival where a special screening of the film will take place at Cameo on June 24.

On to the Talbot Rice Gallery at the Edinburgh College of Art, I was quite taken aback by the level of finishing in Microstoria, especially coming off the GSA show. It’s unclear if the space was hired out or if ECA commissioned Relay, a Writing and Curating Collective of current and recent art school grads, but the exhibition brought together a series of new works that address the strands of minor narratives within a presumably larger grand narrative of “history, nationalism and cultural traditions.” Covering everything from geography, cartography, religion and cultural legacies, the exhibition couldn’t help but exist as a series of fractures within the guise of an overarching theme. While none of the individual works stand out in memory or experience, though it’s hard to ignore Rachel Maclean’s Over The Rainbow, the lasting impression is an undeniable theoretical prowess, which isn’t necessarily positive as embodiment can go a long way in understanding histories.

A stroll around The Royal Botanic Garden led to a perusal of the Scottish premiere of sculptor Thomas Houseago at Inverleith House, which just wasn’t that interesting, and a series of original botany studies from the 18th century by the likes of Andrew Fyfe and other underscored drawers that illustrated John Hope’s botanical lectures. The exhibition of the two is apparently the latest in a series of art and science pairings, but it remains a mystery to me which is suppose to be which.

Image credit: Grace & Owens, Cross Double-Cross (outside view, Ingleby Gallery)
2011 recycled polythene liners, condensation

Trekking over to Ingleby Gallery, which appeared to be the best public gallery ever until it quickly dawned on me that those don’t exist and it’s actually an immaculately curated private gallery, an excellent group exhibition featuring the likes of Kay Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Peter Liversidge, Jonathan Callan, and Yves Klein were pulled into Gravity’s Rainbow. Borrowing the exhibition’s title from one of the most underrated/overrated texts in modern American literature, the transgressive intent by Thomas Pynchon is here translated at best into an exhibition on the concept of borrowing colour, where implicit connotations of meaning, history, and influence are inherent and complicated.

An outstanding work was Liversidge’s Yellow, which is comprised of a series of random yellow objects collected from his travels over the past three years ranging from locations such London to New York, Boston to Hudson, including stops in Stonhaven, Tiree, and our own town of Huntly. As each object’s value moves away from a hierarchy when displayed on a simply grey shelf, an identical shelf sits a few inches over, rushing back the concept of value, where a doppelganger display of the same found objects have been crafted out of clay, glue, and plastic to mimic this collection of shapes and pigments of Yellow.

Witty and pristine, it reminded me of another anecdote shared about the differences between Glasgow and Edinburgh, which translates into its respective art scenes. That if Glasgow was a person, the city would be a drunk old man, and Edinburgh, its rich, classy older half-sister. I thoroughly enjoy the company of both, but for very different reasons.