Lucy Skaer / The Green Man

LA CHASSE

White Gallery, Main Atrium

When you enter the White Gallery you are stepping into the reworking of a moment in history –a medieval hunting scene perhaps, or an allegorical set of ‘sculptural sentences’ inspired by a description of the weather in a 1785 almanac. ‘La Chasse’ began as a radical reworking of Skaer’s abstract sculptures, adding ears and eyes, arrows and blood to dramatise and animate the sculptures into quarry. The work is based on a medieval hunting manual, ‘Le Livre du Chasse’ by Gaston Phébus from 1387- 89. Skaer was intrigued by the representation of time and form within the frame of this painting: people in various stages of action; animals both hunted and hunting; and the scene itself – the field, trees, and a decorative panel that alludes pictorially to a third dimension beyond the flat plane of the surface. Skaer has expanded these ‘moments’ into the cluster of sculptures that form the central grouping in this room. The copper animals that sit on the floor have been hewn from the raw material – edged, angled, slanted and combined to give just a sniff of their animal form. Zoomorphic in tendency, hard edged in form, these creatures speak as much of the industrial process of working the raw material as they do of the rabbit, deer or other creatures that they mimic. The accumulated ‘lozenges’ on the floor and walls evoke the medieval pattern within the painting. Some are cut directly from a thick slice of tree, while the margins of it lean against the wall. Like most of the forms in La Chasse, these objects have been adapted from previous sculptures, cannibalising existing works in the creation of something new. Re-entering the work here at Talbot Rice, Skaer began to see this garden of forms as a language of its own. Exploring the collections of the University, she came across a weather almanac from 1785, and was drawn to its language: from simple phrases such as ‘cooling gales, with showers’ or ‘Stormy weather’; to the more beguiling ‘flying showers now’, ‘warm and fruitful’, ‘Close hot weather’. And a day in the first quarter of the moon in June 1785 that was ‘Hot, dry, and windy’ with ‘Violent thunder’.

These phrases conjure sensations and images of weather as close, proximate to the body; weather as fruitful, productive, contributing to the cultivation of the land and the capital it contains. Within ‘La Chasse’ Skaer has created three new ‘sculptural sentences’ – a series of artworks clustered together under the titles:

‘A Day with Breeze and Fog, Hare Springs from the Yew Woods Over Marsh’s Pool, Knocks the Bough, Caterpillars Fall Twisting to the Ground, ‘Le Livre du Chasse’ (detail) by Gaston Phébus, 1387–89 and Morning Dew, the Hare Rests by Marsh’s Pool, and ‘In the Yew Woods’, ‘Arrows Rain Down’, ‘The Day is Bright and Open, Hare Darts for Cover’ and the ‘Chord of C Minor Sounds.’

Describing subjects, movement and weather in meandering ways, Skaer uses these expressive sentences to evoke language in her sculptures. Here, narrative coagulates around the hunted hare, differentiating it from the background. In a series of sculptures of the words themselves, a pool, a leafy bough and blocks of yew are aligned to be read. As Lucy Skaer would often say, it is through framing a thing that we come to understand it, and by changing the frame surrounding things, change how we relate to them.

In the paintings of Hanneline Visnes, which surround the scene, the denseness of these atmospheric forces seem to shimmer and waver in the air between us and the painting. Dappled with sunlight, drizzled with dew, the surfaces of these paintings rarely sit still, using stylised motifs of animals and plants to comment on the representation and control of nature: Hanneline Visnes merges disparate patterns, motifs, and subjects into her meticulously crafted paintings. She explores and harnesses the power of colour, utilising complementary hues that bounce and fight off the surface, causing her still lifes to dance with agitated energy.

By treating her ‘subject’ and background with the same process, the traditional focal point of the work is blurred, and by working on irregularly shaped surfaces, the fragmental final works feel like part of something larger, like archaeological specimens belonging to another time. (SF)

From shimmering heat signatures, to bronze muddy puddles, Hanneline Visnes’ paintings and Lucy Skaer’s exploration of the natural world are testimony to our position within the planet’s great echo-chamber, the biosphere. Forever altered by the endeavours of mankind, the impact of accelerated industrial activity has now shifted the equilibrium of the planet enough to warrant stratigraphers (geologists studying the layers of the earth) to proclaim a new age for the planet that is defined by humankind’s impact upon it, calling it the Anthropocene. Of the many victims of this global acceleration are the wild animal populations. Of all the mammals on earth today, 96% are livestock and humans, while only 4% are wild mammals. Glimpsed through the opening to the Antechamber in the next room rests a collection of hunting horns. Where horns represented the era of the hunt, stratigraphers suggest that sedimentary layers of crushed domestic chicken bones should be considered one of the defining markers of the planet’s new epoch. Against this wider global implication, La Chasse exists in an increasingly complex overlap between the wild and the cultivated. Neither trophies nor objects, the work of Fiona Connor overtly distorts the sense of place and familiarity within the institutional framework. ‘All the doors in all the walls’ (2018), has been installed throughout all spaces within Talbot Rice, simultaneously revealing secret places and suggesting others: Making use of things that already exist in the world, Fiona Connor devises and develops her site-specific work through site visits, meticulous scale models and architectural drawings, creating a deep understanding and intimate relationship with the space. Her actions and interventions then set out to alter the established perception of that space, whilst critiquing the inherent structures behind institutional organisation. For ‘The Green Man’, Connor has removed 6 of the gallery doors, revealing areas, contents and traces of history usually kept hidden from view. By opening up these apertures – catalogue store, fire escape, roof hatch, tool cupboard and chair store – Connor destabilises the traditional boundaries between the public and private, revealing the mundane, practical mechanisms that form the background for the Gallery’s day-to-day functions. Then embedding the removed doors into the walls of the White Gallery (at the exact height of their origin), Connor temporarily strips them of their traditional use function, simultaneously promoting them to the status of art objects, ghostly minimalist shapes to be read alongside the other work in the Gallery. (SF)

THE ANTECHAMBER

White Gallery, side of main atrium

In the Antechamber you will find many of the items Lucy Skaer has carefully and personally selected from the University’s rich and diverse holdings. Rummaging through the catalogues, rooms and shelves, digesting their meticulous classifications and discussing artefacts with their curators and conservators as she went, Skaer has drawn out a unique array of objects. In many cases, juxtaposing one piece against something else quite foreign gives her selections the energy of the contradictions she creates within her own artworks. In the second display case, ‘Balneum’, a book about bathing, has been opened to a page that is described in the catalgoue: ‘There is a scene of 5 figures bathing in blue water at the bottom of the page.

They are all nude, and have had their genitalia rubbed out. The leftmost figure is bending over, while the others are standing. The rightmost figure is a child, holding the hand of a parent to the left. A green tree grows on the uncoloured outline of a hill behind them.’ The ‘Balneum’ is then aligned with ‘Coagulation time of the blood in man: a physiological study’ (1908), a visceral window into the unseeable fathoms of the body, alongside various Parchment Fragments that the artist has selected. Here, bleeding is everywhere, from the academic analysis, to the bleeding ink on the page, to the pouring of liquids. The liquid of the ink ‘spews forth’ from the Parchment Fragment script, jumping, as in Lucy Skaer’s fascination with the physicality of language, from script to an evocation of form, reminding us of the ‘sculptural sentences’ of ‘La Chasse’. Interestingly, the ‘Coagulation time of the blood in man: a physiological study’, was a thesis written by Thomas Addis Jr., a physician-scientist from Edinburgh (d. 1949).

This paper shows the studies of blood clotting by a man who became a pioneer in the field of nephrology, dealing with diseases of the kidney. For all of his internal examinations and advanced knowledge of human cells, Thomas Addis Jr. also passionately engaged with the greater clots of mankind: a verdant belief in democracy, struggles against injustice, and using his scientific logic ‘to further that understanding and promote that democracy which are the only enduring foundations of human dignity’, as described by his colleague Frank W. Weymouth. In the smaller vitrine is the 'Note from James VI about a bloodhound', (circa 1585): ‘faill not I pray you as ye wald do me pleasure to bring with you the fairest & youngest & best game or bludwounde that ye can be any meanes purchaise’. James was also a founder of the University of Edinburgh.

Next to his note sits Hanneline Visnes’ gouache ‘Egyptian Dog’, and one of the horns, completing the hypothetical scene of the young King’s entreaty. Varied in function and construction, the horns that Skaer has selected range from hunting to fog horns, to the musical trumpet and coronet, her interest resides in the transformation of these blown instruments from their original purpose into other forms of expression:

The emphasis of the Collection is on instruments that are no longer in regular current use, and the collecting policy is to acquire instruments when they fall out of use rather than to collect instruments by contemporary makers. The Collection thus covers the period from the 16th century to the 20th century. Many of the instruments are still playable, with an established concert programme taking place in the Concert Room of St Cecilia’s Hall. This provides a contemporaneous setting for performances, and the only place in the world where it is possible to hear 18th century music in an 18th century concert hall played on 18th century instruments. (Centre for Research Collections)

WHY ARE YOU ANGRY?

Mezzanine of White Gallery screening room (upstairs)

Through their collaborative practice, Nashashibi/Skaer followed in the footsteps of French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, travelling to Tahiti to create ‘Why Are You Angry?’, after Gauguin’s painting ‘No te aha oe riri (Why Are You Angry?)’ of 1896. Shifting between live tableaus inspired by the various iconic paintings of Gauguin, and casual footage of their journey and the environment, Nashashibi/Skaer’s film is inherently political, and decidedly open-ended. Intrigued by the ambiguity in the original artwork’s title (who is angry with who?), Nashishibi/Skaer see Gauguin’s paintings as depicting the ambivalence between the artist and the subject. The subject of political scrutiny even in his time, the act of exoticising colonised women and exporting their natural living conditions (and bodily exposure) for Western consumption, has an even deeper resonance in today’s culture with invigorated debates around power structures. By triangulating the relationship dynamics between those being depicted, those doing the depicting, and themselves re-depicting, female filmmakers Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer shift and disempower that historical male gaze. Gauguin painted the picture in the South Pacific in 1896, just three years after women first won the right to vote in the South Pacific nation of New Zealand. Nashishibi/Skaer’s film, made in a time when the same question - why are you angry? - could be asked at a rally, on social media, in the newspapers 120 years later, will likely be met with the raging potency of women who will no longer be silenced.

NEW ROOMS

Mezzanine of White Gallery (Upstairs)

Exhibition halls and display rooms are a key component of Skaer’s artistic thinking. As a new commission, and part of her response to the collections of the University, Skaer has made a series of architectural models. Some of these present items from the collections, some contain small sculptures she has made, and one is a manifestation of the weather itself. This world of miniatures is introduced by plans for real-world architecture, beginning with a vitrine that houses a drawing on paper by William Henry Playfair. The architect of the Old College, Playfair’s drawing depicts a longitudinal section of the Upper Museum, of what was the Natural History Museum of the University, and later evolved into Talbot Rice’s Georgian Gallery:

Playfair’s ‘Upper Museum’ has iconic columns and Corinthian pilasters, conforming to neoclassical views on the hierarchy of the antique orders. This hall was largely top-lit, giving space for deep glass-fronted wall cases, used to house the Dufresne collection of birds that the University bought in Paris in 1819. Floor cases housed smaller specimens, and this attractive room is illustrated in a small engraving by W. H. Lizars commissioned by Professor Jameson as a letter-head. The Upper Museum remains an impressive public space today, as the University’s Talbot Rice Gallery. William Playfair was only 26 when he won the competition to complete the University in December 1816, but he went on to become the major architect of Neoclassical Edinburgh in the first half of the nineteenth century. When he died in 1857 the portfolios in his office containing the plans and drawings for all his designs were left to the University Library. This is one of the earliest and most extensive collections of architectural drawings to have survived intact, and has formed the basis for later architectural acquisitions. Playfair’s exquisite drawings are so detailed that it would be possible to rebuild most of his buildings today if the need arose. (Centre for Research Collections)

In ‘New Rooms (cedar)’, made of cedar, bronze and cardboard, Skaer has created an environment for a miniaturised version of Henry Moore’s ‘Fallen Warrior’ from 1956.

This undulating cedar floor is disorienting in her proposed Gallery, a perfectly uncertain resting place for Moore’s perfectly uncertain figure, which is based on valiant figures of historical warriors. It is designed to connect to ‘New Rooms (sample)’, a cardboard model which houses a Needlework sample produced by students at Moray House in the late 19th century, as part of their coursework. Three of the samples bear the names of the students who made them: ‘Isabella McKenzie, Senior Student, ‘M. Cranston, Junior II’, and ‘Lizzie Porteous’. Set into the architectural model of an exhibition hall, a needlework sample here takes on the scale and ambition of a massive floor tapestry.

‘New Rooms (yew)’ contains a variety of prints relating to nature and technology, alongside raw slabs of yew wood, while ‘New Rooms (weather)’ continues the exploration of objects, time and space through the representation of weather that she began in a previous sculptural series, aptly titled The Weather (2018). While understanding the weather to be a fleeting state, she is exploring how those atmospheric conditions can become form, or evoke moods: ‘chilly, like the rain’.

Finally, in ‘New Rooms (clay)’, Skaer has created an increasingly undefined series of sculptures from an ancient Mayan mould. With a bird figure on one side and a human on the other, the mould is an image and a tool. It deteriorated each time the artist used it, until at last the bronze spilled into an unpredictable puddle. The idea that an artist today could communicate with an artist of the deep past through the fulfilling of this mould’s purpose creates a powerful image, and the gallery that Skaer has designed around these miniatures is testament to the speculative monumentality of their presence.

DERMATOME MAN

The Round Room (upstairs)

In the centre of the room, Dermatome Man is spread-eagled, eager to communicate nerve sections of the body. The dermatome is the area of skin supplied by a single, specific spinal nerve root. The bands of skin run horizontally on the torso and vertically on the limbs and are distinguished in models like this by using different colours. These ‘anatomical maps’ were valuable in locating various sensations in patients with neurological disorders. This ‘Dermatome Man’ model dates from the early 20th century and is made from papier-mâché, which, compared to wax models, was cheap and easy to manufacture. This ‘area map’ model of the territory of spinal nerve roots is surrounded by biological specimens of a different nature, the seaweed prints that Lucy Skaer discovered in the collections. Beginning their trail in the Round Room, these seaweed prints, and later fern prints, extend throughout the upper levels of the Georgian Gallery.

BOTANICS

Upper Balconies of The Georgian Gallery

In the first room, known locally as the ‘haunted room’, a vitrine of books is overlooked by another of Hanneline Visnes’ paintings. Techniques behind the depictions of flora and fauna contrast in this room. With crimson flowers rimmed by a gold outline against an undulating blue background, the finely detailed oil painting of Visnes overlooks pages that reveal the physical imprints of nature. The books in these vitrines are the source material for the images that are presented further down the walls of the Gallery. Skaer originally discovered these in the University’s Rare Books collections, and later purchased damaged copies of them in order to work back into them as artworks. Although one of the last things to encounter in the exhibition, these Bradbury prints were the first objects from the collections that caught Skaer’s attention, starting her along the path to what would eventually become the full exhibition. Print, imprints, voids left by objects, marks made by quill, stencil, surface, the body and its residue – ideas that are so resonant in Lucy Skaer’s broader practice are captured in these extraordinary nature prints. The fern and seaweed nature prints were created from actual specimens, and printed through the process also made known by Alois Auers. Instead of inked specimens being pressed to paper, this process pressed the plant between a steel and lead plate which left an impression on the softer lead plate. From this point, the lead plate was electroplated, and ink was then added to show the colouring of the specific plant. This process was invented in 1853, just two years before Bradbury adopted it for Moore’s book, and although popular for a period, it proved to be limited in its application, and only some types of plants would render well. Ferns and seaweed were some of the few successful plants to be replicated, but with the advent of photography, image rather than imprint prevailed.

As you move along the balcony, following the shades of the ‘Dermatome Man’s’ colour scheme, the Bradbury nature prints have turned into layered artworks. Skaer has worked on top of the fern prints, drawing with coloured pencil, graphite and ink, using virtually obsolete computer printing technology. Layering over each other, these different elements merge together in a new series of works which are akin to the subconscious of this show, called simply, ‘The Green Man’. At the end of the Georgian Gallery’s balcony is Will Holder’s contribution made specially for ‘The Green Man’, an edition of writer and poet H.D.’s ‘Palimpsest’ that can be read and taken away by visitors on request:

Out of print and unavailable digitally, Holder typeset H.D.’s ‘Palimpsest’ (1926) by reading it to his laptop over the period of a month, using Enhanced Dictation to translate the spoken words to text. H.D. writes: ‘In the novel I am working through a wood, a tangle of bushes and bracken out to a clearing, where I may see clear again.’ ‘Palimpsest’ portrays a reincarnation of the thought processes of three women, while struggling to uphold a practice in the light of patriarchal and social distractions, specific to ancient Rome and the early 20th century. Holder reproduces and distributes 500 copies of this novel, with ‘The Green Man’ as the sole point of distribution – an artwork, within an artwork, within an artwork.

STICKS AND STONES

Georgian Gallery, ground floor

This journey through Lucy Skaer’s practice and fascinations finally leads us to the ground floor of the Georgian Gallery, past one of Fiona Connor’s revealed rooms, and into the back end of Skaer’s remarkable ‘Sticks and Stones’. At the entrance to the Georgian Gallery is a raw material – mahogany – wrought and shaped by nature and which, through Skaer’s alterations, is then transformed, one version to another, carrying with each transformation its meanings, gestures, and character. Raw material can be as potent a carrier of symbol and meaning as a crafted object. A natural material such as wood can become a window into a myriad of histories – from the science of botany, to the politics of colonial trade, to the aesthetics of furniture and fine art design. The root material of Lucy Skaer’s Sticks and Stones is a piece of mahogany that lay at the bottom of the Belize River for more than a century. Logged for export during the British colonial period, the story of this valuable raw material is interwoven with the history of material culture, architecture and geopolitics, as well as forestry and the impact of rainforest depletion on the world environment. Skaer’s Belizian mahogany has been worked into a pair of long, twin, naturally-shaped planks. Each is embedded with, in Skaer’s words, ‘bits and bobs’. Items from the artist’s studio such as prototypes, unsold editions, or tests, are inserted into ‘nooks and crannies’ with the artisanal knack of finely crafted furniture. This process then sets off a chain reaction where, one after another, the originals are copied into a new material: mahogany to ceramic; ceramic to marble; marble to aluminium; ply and maple with oak veneer; paper pulp; slate. The accumulation of all these pairs, laid out in the gallery one after another recalls the ideas of Claude Levi-Strauss and his ideas around myth: that the truth of a myth does not lie only in its origins, but in the accumulation of every utterance. No images are used in this process, and each copy is made only with reference to the preceding one – a direct process of representation from one material into the next. In a time when the scanning and 3D printing of objects is becoming increasingly commonplace, ‘Sticks and Stones’ witnesses a migration of form that takes place through emulation rather than the more forensic accuracy demanded of a copy. The object of origin in this beautiful series is a hybrid itself – the original Belizean mahogany log was sculpted by water as it lay at the bottom of the river for a century: born of the earth; hacked and hewn by humankind; caressed and sculpted by water; pierced by scaps and leftovers, both natural and artificial. Testimony, perhaps, to the age in which the ‘great outdoors’ has ceased to exist, and we define instead what Christian Schwägerl calls ‘the great inside’ – we are not separate from our environment.