This year there are more than 40 exhibitions at 30 museums and galleries and artist-run spaces.
Over 100 artists work on show.
Some 200 events at over 80 venues.
The 11th Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) begins today and runs till 31 August, but you will have to go some to see even half of it.
Building on EAF’s recent history of re-imagining and re-interpreting overlooked or forgotten spaces across Edinburgh, 2014 will feature spaces never before opened to the public, from the Old Royal High School on Regent Road to a disused Police Box on Easter Road. It will also include a programme of co-commissions realised with the University of Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery, as part of EAF’s commitment to supporting the next generation of emerging artists.
The organisation of the festival is under the able and watchful eye of Sorcha Carey who has a permanent year-round job. This festival does not simply pop up in August without a wealth of research and curation which goes on the rest of the year. Already in February each year the festival makes a call for those artists wishing to apply for submissions.
There is a festival Guide and you can plan your route round the exhibitions with the Map, but even then suitably equipped you may find it difficult to choose where to go first.
There are commissions, events and exhibitions and really far too many great and interesting shows and exhibitions to choose from! But this is not intended in any way as a complaint. The Edinburgh Art Festival has come into its own now and is a great standalone event as well as an add-on to the other festivalling which is going on in the city.
We think you might start at The City Art Centre with the Where do I end and you begin exhibition. There are panel discussions, performances and film screenings to accompany the core exhibits drawn from around the Commonwealth. There are five curators and work from twenty artists.
This covers all four floors of the City Art Centre and will bring together art curators from across the Commonwealth, showing work by some artists who have never been displayed here in the UK until now.
If you have small children with you or can get some to tag along then use the free activity trail for families which is now in its second year. This is a variety of creative ideas to kindle some interest in art in young people. It moves from the City Art Centre to the Collective on top of Calton Hill and to Dovecot Studios.
There is a guide at any of these locations which will help you find your way about.
Art Late is an opportunity to do something that is not usually allowed – go into art galleries later at night. (Why does nobody think to do this on a permanent basis?) This year there are over 20 exhibitions with live music. These sessions are free but booking is necessary.
Sorcha Carey, Director, Edinburgh Art Festival said:
“Our commissions programme has always revealed new perspectives in the city. This year many of our artists draw on the past to reflect on future possibilities, while a series of new works co-commissioned with Talbot Rice Gallery puts a spotlight on the imaginations of the future.”
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, said:
“The Edinburgh Art Festival is now firmly established as a vital component in the success of Edinburgh’s wider festival programme, celebrating some of the very best visual art from Scotland and around the world, and promoting our fantastic culture, exceptional talent and our reputation as a creative nation to audiences from around the globe.
“The 2014 programme is another vibrant, exciting and diverse mix of exhibitions, events and publicly sited artworks. The Scottish Government is pleased to support the Art Festival’s public commissions programme through the Expo Fund. This commitment to innovative and inclusive public art has become a hallmark of the Festival in recent years and offers an exciting and thrilling dialogue for locals and visitors alike in what is a landmark year for Scotland.
“The Scottish Government is proud to support such an exciting mix of ambitious new work by leading Scottish artists with international reputations alongside Scotland’s brightest emergent talent.”
GENERATION is an exhibition taking place across Scotland to hail 25 years of contemporary art. The top ten according to The List includes the Pier Arts Centre Stromness of which more here. For the moment we concentrate on the Edinburgh offering which includes Memorialmania – an alternative audio guide to Calton Hill. This begins at the Black Bull pub and Tam Dean Burns narration guide you up the incline with snippets of stories to entertain you on the way. Ruth Milne occasionally interrupts (in a nice way) with poems. This starts from the Collective Gallery on Calton Hill and runs till the end of the year.
This is a huge panoply of major new openings combining as a landmark event of contemporary art in Scotland over the last quarter century.
Jupiter Artland have a wealth of new work notably by Katie Paterson whose Earth-Moon-Earth performance will take place daily and will coincide with her solo show at the Ingleby Gallery in town. And yes the piano is connected to the moon…..
Jupiter Artland 17 July – 28 September 2014
Earth-Moon-Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)
Katie Paterson
Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)
2007
Disklavier grand piano
Installation view, Cornerhouse, Manchester 2011
Photo © We are Tape
Courtesy of the artist
The Edinburgh Reporter made a video report about Jupiter Artland which you can watch here.
Her other works are now on show at the Ingleby Gallery
Edinburgh Art Festival Ingleby Gallery 31 JULY – 31 AUGUST 2014
Katie Paterson – Ideas
Katie Paterson
Campo del Cielo Field of the Sky (15070g) 2013
Found meteorite, cast melted and re-cast back into a new version of itself
26.7 x 19.1 x 12.7 cm
© the artist and Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
The Fruitmarket Gallery will host a major retrospective of work by Jim Lambie and Collective focuses on the 20 years of Ross Sinclair’s Real Life project.
Artist talks will include performances and contributions by Amar Kanwar, Nalini Malani, Katie Paterson, Dalziel and Scullion and specially commissioned Edinburgh Art Festival artists. At Talbot Rice Gallery there will be an evening of performances by Jeans & MacDonald who will explore the World Wide Web, Ortonandon and Alexa Hare who will explore themes of popular culture, fandom and meta-narrative.
At our city’s galleries there are always great exhibitions and this August is no exception. At the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art American Impressionism : A New Vision includes works by Whistler, Degas and Sargent.
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery has John Ruskin:Artist and Observer and the National Museum of Scotland has a whole collection of Chinese national treasures from the Ming Dynasty in Ming:The Golden Empire.
The Queen’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse explores poets laureate in Poetry for the Palace:Poets Laureate from Dryden to Duffy. Meanwhile at Edinburgh Printmakers there is an exhibition of works by Scottish artist Calum Colvin.
See what we mean? Too much to choose from.
Have a look at the guide and make up your mind. Do tell us what you go and see!
Click to access eafguide2014.pdf
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
