The current Exhibition at Modern One, Edinburgh, is Tracing Time by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh, of whom I hadn’t heard until the exhibition came on. It ws quite interesting, though some of the exhibits were a bit of a miss rather than a hit.

The outline of this reminded me of the shape of the Korean peninsula:-

A fairly crude drawing of an odd subject:-

Circles or swirls feature in a lot of the exhibits:-

A somewhat scatological drawing:-

This seems to be just a shape:-

Houses, too, are a feature:-

This walk-thorough installation recreates the entrances to several of the homes in which the artist has lived:-

The Exhibition is on till Sep 1st.

Also at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s Modern One (until 28^th October) is the above titled exhibition featuring the work of Raqib Shaw.

Apparently he could not afford oil paints so started to use enamels. This gives his work the appearance of huge but intricately decorated ceramic tiles. Some of it is a bit “bling”y for me but the effect can be stunning and the detail is extraordinary particularly in the circular area of his reinvention of the Cranach. The reproductions here do not convey just how shiny his pictures are.

To do this must be so time consuming even if he does have assistants to help. I left wondering how on earth he could make a living doing this. Unless every (enamel? can you really call them paintings?) sells for tens of thousands of pounds.

Shaw speaks for himself here:-

On the upper floor at Modern One (the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art) as part of the NOW exhibition is a series of art works by schoolchildren – the winning entries in the Tesco Bank Art Competition for Schools.

Some of these are just about the best things in the gallery. See the highlights a lttle down the page in the link.

That lino cut by Lucy Clarke (Secondary 1-3) is very impressive and Lucy Cairns’s picture from the Primary 4-7 category could be an illustration from a particularly scary children’s book.

Meanwhile over Edinburgh’s Belford Road from Modern Two; at the Modern One gallery of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is an exhibition called NOW which mainly features Jenny Saville. It’s on until 12^th September.

Most of her paintings are larger-than-life-size portraits – or at least feature human figures.

Some of them verge on – or overstep the boundary of – grotesque:-

This one of what looks like a child is less so:-

The introductory video from the gallery website is below. The eyes of the child in the painting over the artist’s left shoulder are very well done.