THURSDAY, MAY 2
It was our second day in downtown Edinburgh…more relaxed, wetter, less ambitious. We wanted to walk behind the castle, and began near the intersection where Home and Prince Streets meet by the Lyceum Theatre. We skirted behind The Castle, then dipped into Old Town, feeling pleased by how much we recognized as we headed toward the Stills Center for Photography and the The Fruitmarket Gallery.
TWO GALLERIES AND A ECLECTIC GIFT SHOP
Unfortunately the Stills Center for Photography didn’t have any shows that we hadn’t already seen. We crossed the street to the The Fruitmarket Gallery. The gift shop is the best part of this gallery. It has the most wonderful artists’ books, books about artists and quirky, eclectic stuff, like David Shrigley pins and hilarious gift cards.
The featured exhibition was the work of Chicago artist, Senga Nengudi. She is mainly a performance artist, which meant that much of the exhibition was photographs of performances, not that compelling. There were also sculptural and installation pieces. We weren’t fans of her work, a bit mundane (plastic filled with colored water, a small room covered with newspapers tacked to the wall, words crossed out, some circled in gold), but we did like her stretched nylons with sand in the feet. Chloe said one piece reminded her of a playground with children.
It rained as we walked up the hill by the National Gallery, reminding us of our last visit to Edinburgh and our lunch at the cozy and bustling restaurant, Makar’s Gourmet Mash Bar. We decided to go back for another huge, comfort food lunch which included a pile of mashed potatoes.
BORDERLINES EXPLORED: EXHIBITION AT TALBOT RICE GALLERY
The Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh, also in Old Town, was our next stop, where we saw a highly intellectual, conceptual show, titled “Borderlines.” The exhibition covered two floors , three rooms, and included two videos (by the same artists – Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan) and installations. Each work dealt with ideas of borders — photographs of mundane land along “the border” between North Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; documents manipulated and covering a wall that were a testament to all the effort needed to gain visa status in England; demarcations indicating ownership of the areas of the sea; two large photographs of an anarchist, black flag on the North and South poles; and large blocks of sugar exported to Nigeria and them imported back.
Each artist included in this show spent years researching and working on their project, and each piece, in turn, required significant time on the part of the viewer. Luckily, a small book was provided on entering the gallery, and it clearly laid out the thinking behind the works. It was a brilliant, complex exhibition that challenged and presented ideas about Brexit, fishing, exports and imports, the ocean, the EU, ownership and immigration.
Our day in the city ended with a meander down Home Street, peering in shops, stopping for coffee and a turmeric latte, the bus ride back….and a very happy, tail-wagging welcome from Duffy.
