Art seen in Edinburgh - Peter Doig and Peter Liversidge

Revisiting the exhibition highlights seen last week in Edinburgh - a daunting process, as there's so much to research and digest before putting thoughts into words.

The Peter Doig exhibition was much advertised and well attended, and what's not to like? He lives on a tropical island, the paintings are big, the colours are luscious - the display was nicely divided into an awkward display space. Apart from the paintings themselves, I enjoyed the informative captions and the "back matter" shown in vitrines - preparatory sketches, photographs - and the variants of a work shown on the walls in some instances. (Didn't buy the catalogue, though.)

The show is on till 3 November; the artist is interviewed here.

Also mainstream: Peter Liversidge at Inglesby Gallery, an artist entirely new to me. The exhibition reworks a set of prints called "The Glove" by Max Klinger (1881; analysed here), first of all installing a subtly altered version of the original-sized in a cosy "Victorian parlour", then remaking them greatly enlarged in the space upstairs.

The glove itself -or rather, a marble replica - has dropped out of the prints and onto the floor -

Klinger's theme is obsession; the theme of this exhibition is one that runs through Liversidge's work: finding and repositioning.

In another room is a small piece - and its proposal. A big part of Liversidge's work is the typed proposal for each exhibition, which he prepares at his kitchen table -

(The photo is in an enticing book published by the gallery.)

PROPOSAL FOR RICHARD AND FLORENCE INGLEBY AT THE INGLEBY GALLERY, 15 CARLTON ROAD, EDINBURGH, EH8 53L
April 2013.

I propose to install to the right of this framed proposal a small grey shelf, 1150 cm from the ground and 450 mm from this proposal. The shelf will be exactly the same size as this piece of paper, which is: 297 x 210mm.
The shelf will remain empty for a calendar month, after which it will be activated. During the following month I will mail objects to the shelf installed as it is in it's new location. Once the second month has passed I will stop posting the objects so that the grey shelf becomes host to a group of mailed objects. These mailed objects will make the journey from my studio in London, to their new home in Einburgh via Royal Mail's national postal system.

Peter Liversidge.

The postal art has a 70% success rate of arrival, he says in this article - which describes him as " a poet who proposes to "investigate coincidence" and "a composer" of other people's actions".

This describes how the proposals "work" - Every element in an exhibition of work by Peter Liversidge begins at his kitchen table with the artist writing proposals on an old typewriter. These hand-typed pages present an array of possible and impossible prompts for ideas and artworks in almost every conceivable medium. In a sense the first articulation of every work is in Liversidge’s head, then on the typed page, then in the mind of the reader, and finally (perhaps) as a realized object or happening. Over the past few years Liversidge has worked in this way with an increasingly diverse body of institutions. 

Liversidge has also done the "Hello" flags that flew around the city - a seemingly simple idea.

One show I missed seeing was the Dovecot Studios exhibition - there wasn't time for everything! - but you can read a good overview here. The studios have been going for over 100 years, weaving tapestries and rugs and working with artists of the day.

I had hoped to include Christine Borland and Brody Condon's "daughters of decayed tradesmen" show, and  Ilana Halperin's "library", in this post, but have run out of steam, so ... another time.