Lauren Dyer Amazeen

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  picks July 13, 2010

  Lee Mingwei

  New York–based artist Lee Mingwei made several trips to the Mount Stuart estate, on the Scottish island of Bute, to develop the concept for his new installation there, Trilogy of Sounds, 2010. On each visit, he found the Victorian gothic manor and its expansive grounds quite still, unlike the rest of his journey, which was steeped in the sounds of the sea. Ultimately, the artist decided to create a work—his first major sound project—that would span two of the manor’s interior spaces and the natural landscape outside.

  A large wind chime sculpture, made of bronze and wood, hangs in the garden. Its

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  print Summer 2010

  Peter Liversidge

  Peter Liversidge experiments with what he describes as the “notion of creativity.” For the past several years, his exhibitions have been centered on the practice of writing proposals for artworks and performances, some to be realized and some not. To commence, the artist sits at his kitchen table, typing a group of one-page proposals on an old manual typewriter, over a predetermined period of time. In most instances, the markings from any corrections are left visible. The proposals for each exhibition are made into books with such titles as Festival Proposals (2006); Proposals for Barcelona (

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  picks August 25, 2009

  Callum Innes

  For “I Look to You,” an exhibition by the Scottish painter Callum Innes at Ingleby Gallery, the artist introduces a new series of abstract works. Innes has gently refined his characteristic process of addition and subtraction––applying paint and then removing it with washes of turpentine––by building layers that exude elegance. Most of the works are divided vertically into two equal parts, with one muted side and one dark or bright side painted with a lush hue (blue, red, green, and yellow among them). All exhibit bold horizontal brushstrokes and variegated surfaces.

  It has been said that Innes’s

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  picks March 06, 2009

  Gunilla Klingberg

  Mixing the mundane with the mystical, Swedish artist Gunilla Klingberg makes witty commentaries on contemporary consumer culture. For her largest exhibition to date, the artist has created new works and redeveloped her earlier pieces in dialogue with the exhibition space. In Klingberg’s practice, supermarket and chain-store logos and mass-produced household items are transformed into ornate patterns and shapes that recall Eastern textiles and spiritual imagery. Sculptures, wall paintings, projections, and installations are thoughtfully positioned throughout this show, including the sculpture

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  print February 2009

  Beagles & Ramsay

  John Beagles and Graham Ramsay’s newly commissioned sculptural installation, Good Teeth, 2008, is the result of a three-month residency designed to allow for experimentation with new materials on a bold scale. Timely enough, Good Teeth features a golden and glittering monument to Mammon—a false god of greed, projecting the illusion of perfect happiness. The piece is lit solely by the facing neon sculpture comprising the two loaded words GOOD TEETH.

  Beagles & Ramsay have been collaborating in Glasgow since 1996, and their early work crammed the exhibition space with a barrage of items, from posters,

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  picks July 11, 2008

  Jim Lambie

  Jim Lambie’s exhibition “Forever Changes,” which takes its title from the 1968 album by the band Love, powerfully alters visitors’ perceptions of an imposing nineteenth-century hall, originally designed as Glasgow’s Royal Exchange, that is filled with Corinthian columns, large windows, and brightly colored coffered ceilings. Commissioned in association with the Glasgow International Arts Festival, Lambie’s installation is built on one of his signature black-and-white vinyl floor pieces. Titled Strokes (all works 2008), the work has no straight lines or angles, only curves flowing gracefully

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  print Summer 2008

  Craig Mulholland

  Scottish artist Craig Mulholland’s eloquent new series “Grandes et Petites Machines,” 2006–2008, spanned three Glasgow venues—Sorcha Dallas gallery, the Mackintosh Gallery at the Glasgow School of Art, and the Glasgow Film Theatre—before touring to Spike Island, Bristol. Exhibiting wall-based “paintings” made of polycarbonates etched on drilled aluminum or applied to wood and drilled pegboard, sculptures, and computer-generated animations under a title that refers to large-scale historical paintings of the nineteenth-century French Salons, Mulholland reflects on what to many of us seems

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  picks April 29, 2008

  Jonas Dahlberg

  Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg’s videos explore relationships between architectural and psychological space. Carefully constructed scenes set in familiar places—residential streets, private chambers, hallways—become uncanny and mysterious. His newest piece, Three Rooms, 2008, exhibited in a darkened gallery, depicts a bedroom, a living room, and a dining room separately on three screens. There seems to be no movement at the outset of the video, and the simple interiors evoke an enigmatic Scandinavian solitude also found in certain interior paintings, like those of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi.