The WIP #15: Animal, Plant, and Mineral
The Week in Photos (6-12 April 2024)
I’d never heard of Bruce Gilden before this week and have been appalled by his street photography and portraits. Appalled … but captivated. They are haunting and it was fascinating to listen to him talk about his process.
I tried to imagine how it would feel to do something similar and "have no ethics". The closest I came this week was snapping this guy having a quiet lunch in McDonald’s.
I finally made it on Sunday to AGITATE, a photography gallery in the West End of Edinburgh. Here is one of the founders, Christina Webber, using her knee to push open a stiff door.
The current exhibition is a collection of Robin Gillanders’ photos of Little Sparta, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay. I love Little Sparta, with all its revolutionary politics, elegant typography, and classicism. But
, whose author photo was taken by Christina, hated it:The aesthetic stinks. There is a Boy’s Annual vibe to it all - grenades and machine guns carved in stone and metal, Ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions, a half sunk row boat and references to sailing, the “inland seas” or human made ponds have a swampy, sewer look to them, buzzing with flies.
The exhibition is on until the 26 April and the gallery is well worth visiting. I bought two postcards from Julie Laing’s incredible low-sodium light series.
There’s been a lot of rain recently, which is not great for smartphone photography. When it cleared the tidal weir was like white water rapids — so much pressure.
On my daily walk, I’ve been intrigued by a new cat café that is about to open in Woodlands. It has the most elaborate structures for them to play on, though most seem to just enjoy sleeping. By total coincidence, I saw a dead pigeon nearby.
Saturn Akin, best known to me for their collaborations with MV Brown and Hanna Tuulikki, has a solo show at Intermedia Gallery. It is a photography exhibition, yet most of the images have been generated using 3D modelling software. The result is a series of strange creatures, uncanny assemblages of animal, mineral, and plant.
After having been in Florence, the centre of humanism, it was mind-expanding to step into an interspecies environment, where the human is decentred and queried. The exhibition continues until 27 April.
I returned to the CCA on Thursday for Nina Stanger and Catriona Beckett’s ambient ode to the M8. Although having a motorway running through the middle of a city is insane, it does seem to inspire creativity.
In the pub afterwards, I tried to explain to Metin and Chloe about this weekly photo diary. But why tell when you can show?
Last night, I bumped into John Butler and William Armstrong at Neil Bickerton’s new show at A_Place Gallery. We ended up talking about technology and art, inspired by my latest post on Paul Outerbridge. The trouble with John is that he’s stuck in the future.
Some happy news to finish. Last Saturday, I met Rita and Phantom Limb, the new arrivals of my friends Chris and Kathryn. Rita took just over nine months to arrive, Phantom Limb about five years. One of them is a beautiful bundle of joy, the other is a baby girl the best Scottish debut novel since Morvern Callar.
I also had my doubts about Bruce Gilden until I got his Japan photo book, Cherry Blossom.
https://ollithomson1.substack.com/p/bruce-gilden