Sunday Herald

Sunday Herald - 23 June 2002

Reviewed: Art imitating life: it's only natural

The Great Divide
The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh Until July 27
***
Visual Art, by Giles Sutherland

THE central idea of this show, implied in its title, is that there exists an ever-widening gulf between humanity and nature. The Great Divide is also the title of a photograph by Graeme Murray -- curator of the exhibition and director of the gallery -- showing seven men on horseback against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. The metaphor is clear: the human species is separated from nature by a vast, insurmountable barrier. The knowledge that the men in the photograph are, apparently, Texas oilmen serves to heighten our perception of this split.

This type of analysis is fine, as far as it goes, but is also subject to a number of deep philosophical flaws, because we as humans are also part of nature and our acts -- however reprehensible, ecologically destructive or wantonly exploitative -- also belong to some kind of natural order. Indeed, the idea of nature is never really explained or fully explored here .

But the show is highly ambitious in its scope, size and diversity. The work of 14 photo- graphers, sculptors, potters, cabinet-makers and organisations is complemented by 14 feature and documentary films, and DVD projections -- among them Alison Hayes's four-wall projections of swarming midges.

Taken individually, almost every exhibit has a high degree of merit either in terms of craftsmanship or conception. One example is Borderline, Andy Goldsworthy's response to last year's foot-and-mouth epidemic, seen from the perspective of his Dumfriesshire home. A corner of the gallery is given over to a thick coating of roughly combed sheep's wool which has been singed along the outer edge: it's a chilling but moving testament to the wrecked lives and livelihoods which resulted from the crisis.

All the artists represented here are attempting to link the perceived gap between themselves and the natural world -- but Nigel Bridges, in particular, has achieved an unusual resolution of this dichotomy. Bridges is a rare combination: an installation artist, sculptor and cabinet-maker. His piece Hebrides -- Lighthouses Literature Shelves somehow brings these disparate elements together. The work is what it says it is: beautifully crafted elm, ash and yew shelving with bone inlay, decorated with hand-turned wooden bowls of Californian redwood and oak. Significantly, the literature of the title is sparsely represented by two carefully chosen texts: Bella Bathurst's The Lighthouse Stevensons and RL Stevenson's Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. And although the theme of the split nature of the Scottish psyche is well-worn, the ideas are nicely implied. (SEE THE SHELVES)

The show's diversity is stimulating, but the lack of a solid, tangible theme is highly frustrating. The effect is rather like dipping into a huge anthology of writing without the help of an index or a contents page. The resulting tensions between the differing media and intents are as often conflicting as they are creative.