THE TIMES
Monday May 13 2024 |
 
ART | REVIEW: RSA Annual Exhibition — You will be moved and inspired
The Royal Scottish Academy. By Giles Sutherland
 
/  Presented by Alex Allan’s reclaimed wooden pieces; the numinous glass, stone and metal objects by MaryBourne and Lynne Strachan, and a series of found-object metaphors by the Chilean artist Francisca Prieto, collectively entitled Denied/Woman. 
 
 
Jude Barber, architecture curator of the Royal Scottish Academy’s (RSA) major annual show, cites the Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari who implores us to “seize today’s exceptional opportunities for mending present imbalances and stitching the highly damaged tapestry of our planet”. Lari’s Letter to a Young Architect, while directed at a niche audience, has a wider resonance because architecture affects us all.
 
The many diverse projects documented here range from a health and social care centre in north Sutherland by the Edinburgh-based Open College of the Arts to Glasgow Wood, a recycling project that brings discarded timber into the circular economy. A Fragile Correspondence — a collaboration involving architects, writers and environmental thinkers — shown at last year’s Venice architecture biennale deserves more attention, which it will hopefully receive when it opens at V&A in Dundee later this year. 
 
Wendy McMurdo, the lead curator, is a photographer and film-maker, so it’s not surprising that lens-based work has a high profile. Films include work by the visual artists Dalziel + Scullion, Anne Bevan, Ruth Maclennan, Fraser Macbeath, Zoe Irvine, David Faithfull and Sara Stroud. Stroud’s autobiographical animation is darkly humorous — a stream of consciousness smart-phone narrative by a woman walking through the aisles of a supermarket.
 
There’s some sensitive photography including John Mackechnie’s seascapes and a study of sheep awaiting ritual slaughter in Tusheti, Georgia, by Annahita Brooks. Norman McBeath’s series, nature is never spent, transforms the quotidian (drying leaves) into objects of beauty. It’s good to see RSA stalwarts such as Kate Downie, Jake Harvey, Gareth Fisher, Jacki Parry and Sam Ainslie, whose work continues to develop and grow. There’s a welcome appearance by Jock McFadyen, whose Smoker 3 lends a bit of atmospheric urban grit. Members who died in 2023 — Delia Baillie, Dennis Buchan, John Byrne and Peter Collins — are remembered fondly by an obituary space for their paintings. Buchan’s vibrant abstraction sings off the wall, while the catalogue pays tribute to honorary members Gilleasbuig Macmillan and Kenneth White.
 
Inventive sculpture is well represented by Alex Allan’s reclaimed wooden pieces; the numinous glass,
stone and metal objects by Mary Bourne and Lynne Strachan, and a series of found-object metaphors by the Chilean artist Francisca Prieto, collectively entitled Denied/Woman.
 
Be prepared to be moved, inspired, entertained and challenged. Until June 16
                                                                                                                                                    
 
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rsa-annual-exhibition-review-you-will...