Between poles and tides
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David Batchelor, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ilana Halperin, Jessica Harrison, Fabienne Hess, Daniel Hughes, Daisy Lafarge, Jonathan Owen, Katie Paterson, Isobel Turley, Luc Tuymans, JL Williams
Including three tattooed Doulton figurines, a set of clocks that tell the time of every planet in the solar system, a sculpture created over ten months in a French cave and a large gazing leopard projected over the main Gallery space, 'Between poles and tides' is a dramatic display of work recently acquired by the University of Edinburgh. It features work by established artists, recent graduates and works connected to the Talbot Rice Gallery programme.
'Between poles and tides' speaks of elemental forces, natural rhythms, destruction, social discord and displacement. The exhibition brings together artists exploring subjects including cosmology, politics and Deep Time, dealing with these concerns in universal, poetic and deeply personal ways. 'Between poles and tides' showcases the critical, imaginative and pedagogic possibilities opened up by the University’s new approach to collecting.
Exhibition Guide
Press release published on the occasion of 'Between poles and tides' at Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh.
Texts are available to view below or download.
Between poles and tides
New Acquisitions from the University of Edinburgh Art Collection
David Batchelor, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ilana Halperin, Jessica Harrison, Fabienne Hess, Daniel Hughes, Daisy Lafarge, Jonathan Owen, Katie Paterson, Isobel Turley, Luc Tuymans, JL Williams.
Including three tattooed Doulton figurines, a set of clocks that tell the time of every planet in the solar system, a sculpture created over ten months in a French cave and a large gazing leopard projected over the main Gallery space, Between poles and tides is a dramatic display of work recently acquired by the University of Edinburgh. It features work by established artists, recent graduates and works connected to the Talbot Rice Gallery programme.
Actively building its contemporary art collection since 2012, the University of Edinburgh has been strategically acquiring works that reflect and feed the breadth and depth of its teaching, learning and academic community. Ensuring public access to this collection, 'Between poles and tides' demonstrates the quality and diversity of these new acquisitions. Formally and conceptually dynamic, the exhibition includes sculpture, painting, printmaking, video and poetry; whilst exploring ecology, cosmology, politics and geology. Reflecting a cross-section of contemporary artistic practice, it includes works concerned with appropriation, materiality and the act of collecting itself.
The work of both Katie Paterson and Ilana Halperin results from intensive research and collaboration with various specialists to explore our individual relationship to the monumental, be it the unfathomable vastness of the universe or the concept of Deep Time. Both Jessica Harrison and Jonathan Owen create work by acquiring existing sculptures and images before painstakingly modifying them to transform their signification; whilst politics, biology and poetry combine in the works of both Ian Hamilton Finlay and 2016 ECA graduate Daisy Lafarge.
With newly commissioned poetic responses from Lafarge and JL Williams, Between poles and tides offers new layers of creative interpretation, weaving new pathways between the works. It also sees the launch of a new publication, Zebras, Blanks and Blobs by Fabienne Hess. Developed from her 2015 TRG3 project it offers a humorous and subversive re-interpretation of the broader University Collection.
Between poles and tides is part of a suite of three exhibitions showcasing the University of Edinburgh’s collections. In Gallery 2, the Torrie Collection features Italian Renaissance sculptures and Dutch Golden Age paintings from the University’s founding art collection. In Gallery 3, Kate V Robertson’s Object(hood) takes eight objects from the collections, including a death mask of Isaac Newton and a piece of brain coral, to creatively orchestrate their historical narratives alongside the transient meanings they generate as things.
