Artists at EIBF

Cornelie Parker

Gao Xingjian

John Byrne

Alasdair Gray

Barroux

Nathan Coley

Scotlands Many Voices

Thinking this over – it seems England views Scotland as a north region, like Yorkshire say – rather than a separate country that has centuries old entirely separate history, many ancient traditions and old Celtic ballads and a distinct culture. Before James VI left to become King of England, Scotland had its line of Scottish Kings, from King David and later the Stuart kings. It's really a question of - does Scotland's separate identity matter for the success of the country and for the UK too?

Scotland is one of the oldest countries in Europe. Scotland is also a land of many huge contrasts from the great imposing drama of the highlands; the misty heathers and fast running streams; the green and cultivated lands of the north east; the quiet beauties of St Andrews and Fife and the coastal walks; and the charm of the borders.  

Alasdair Moffat and Alan Raich in their book, Arts of Resistance write of the destruction of Scottish culture. 
“The wholesale reduction of a culture to tartan tourist clichés. Ian Crichton Smith evoked images of the white streams screaming through the moonlight of the Cullen’s – a permanent scream of protest against all the trivialization of our history that has been foisted upon us.”  

Keeping Scots Alive!; culture, words, art and Music

In the 18^th century after union of Parliament – many poets and others worked diligently to keep Scots and what the Scots believe in, alive...such as Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Robert Burns.

They felt it was vitally important.

In the 17^th century after Union of the Crowns, the Scottish royal court left Holyrood for London. This was good! It meant all the hangers on left too -  and meant the Thinkers and the Philosophers, were free to voice opinions! The Scottish Enlightenment led Europe. Many great Scottish thinkers left a huge mark on the world.

The poet Hugh MacDiarmid said in his Lost Interview, ""Lord [Harold] Acton, the historian, has said that no small nation in the history of the world has had a greater impact on mankind at large than the Scots have had. That influence flowed from the national character which is utterly different from the English. To analyze that national character is to discover the factors comprising our Scottish culture."

*Some Forgotten Scots Heroes – Thomas Muir, George Hamilton, James Clerk Maxwell, (Maxwell is the greatest physicist ever – and yet it was only in 2008 that a statue of him was unnveiled in Edinburgh. Odd really considering)

James Clerk Maxwell

*Scottish Artists – Arthur Melville, Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret MacDonald, Glasgow Boys, Henry Raeburn, 

*Great Scottish Poets – Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, James MacPherson, Robert Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid,

*Scottish Writers – Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Iain Banks,

Alasdair Gray, Irvine Welsh, Janice Gallowy, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Nan Sheperd, George MacDonald,

*Scottish Scientists  - James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, James Chrichton, Alexander Fleming, John Napier, John Leslie, Joseph Black, James Hutton, John Leslie, James Clerk Maxwell.

(I'm ashamed and saddened that growing up in Edinburgh I learned practically nothing of Scottish history, culture and the arts. I used to walk down the Royal Mile and wonder about all the history here... I am now teaching myself.

‘To be truly internationalism, we must first be nationalists.’ Hugh MacDiarmid.

The sky in Scotland changes with often rapid speed – when the wind gets up one moment and is suddenly still and clear the next. Then a sharp wind catches us as the skies darken and heavy clouds roll over and there will be a sudden heavy shower as we hurry for cover and wait for the weather to shift and for some warm rays to descend and we are grateful.

The dark and light of our weather.

 

Scottish Women Artists Exhibition Edinburgh

Scottish Women Artists Exhibition Edinburgh - Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965 - 7th Nov 2015 − 26th June 2016; Modern Two (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art)

Women artists in this exhibition will include - Bessie Mac Nicol, Phoebe Anna Traquair, Gertrude Alice Meredith Williams, Margaret Macdonald, Dorothy Johnstone and Hazel Amour, Phyllis Mary Bone, Joan Eardley and Bet Low.

The exhibition will focus on painters and sculptors and the period from 1885 to 1965. ,

(when Fra Newbery became Director of Glasgow School of Art, and until 1965, the year of Anne Redpath’s death).

The eighty years which lay between these events saw an unprecedented number of Scottish women train and practice as artists.  More than 90 works will be shown, from the National Galleries of Scotland’s holdings and other public collections from throughout the UK, as well as from private collections.

Early last century women were forbidden from attending life drawing classes. They also had to give up any art careers if they married. 

The conditions that the artists negotiated as students and practitioners due to their gender will be explored, shedding new light on this vital chapter of Scottish modern art history, whilst uncovering and celebrating women’s contribution to it.

The exhibition will include familiar masterpieces alongside important works by significant artists which are rarely seen and who are not widely known.

The galleries believe there is scope for more shows of female artists and the display is a precursor to a major re-think and re-hang of the gallery.

MY BLOG ON Women Artists - http://www.musicfootnotes.com/2014/10/woman-and-art.html

Modern Scottish Women will be accompanied by a book based on new research, as well as a free permanent collection display of prints by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, selected from a recent gift of her work by The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Charitable Trust.

Exhibition supported by The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Charitable Trust and a sorority of women across Scotland

 Image: Dorothy Johnstone, Anne Finlay, 1920, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collections © Courtesy of Dr DA Sutherland and Lady JE Sutherland 

 https://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/on-now-coming-soon/modern-scottish-women/

National Art Galleries of Scotland

National Art Galleries of Scotland

At the Scottish National galleries in Edinburgh - I used to pass every day on my way to secondary school - there has not been a Scottish director for the past 60 years. The Scottish painters lie in its basement.  Most Scottish artists+ have had to move abroad to the likes of New York to gain recognition.  

In 2012 the galleries held an exhibition titled Van Gogh to Kandinsky | Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910 with not one Scottish painter in the display. 

The National Galleries of Scotland for the last 60 years have been run by directors from England. Does this matter?  Well yes if you value a country's expression. For those who wish to keep Scotland's historical and cultural identify suppressed it matters also.   

In most other major capital cities worldwide they house one half of the gallery for international art and the other sections for art of that country.  It would seem strange to visit the national art galleries of say Barcelona and for there not to be any Spanish art there? No idea what message this sends out to foreign visitors that in Scotland we rarely exhibit our own Scottish artists.

On my first visit to the refurbished Scottish portrait gallery a few years ago in 2011, I looked in vain for any respected Scottish photographers - when I know there are many! I hope this may be remedied now?  I just read that Scotland opened the first National Portrait gallery! The portrait gallery museum was (first established in 1882) and rehoused in its new purposed built building in 1889, the first in the world. Paid for by John Ritchie Findlay. 

Labour peer George Robertson, former Defence secretary and NATO chief, gave a speech at Dundee university where he claimed that places like Flanders and Catalonia have more history and culture than Scotland - when it fact Catalonia does not have anything like the long centuries of history Scotland has as a defined and separate country. In fact Scotland has a longer history than the UK has. 

He said regarding Scottish independence, " There is no linguistic differentiation, no great cultural discrimination that might ague for it, like in some other countries...."they have language and culture and all these sort of things. Scotland doesn't have any of that."    

I recommend reading the book 'Arts of Independence'  and 'Arts of the Resistance' on the suppression of Scottish arts, by Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach; the cultural argument and why it matters most. 

 http://www.luath.co.uk/arts-of-independence.html

Music Today 2014

Today the successful artists generate money via - 60% Tickets, 20% tour merchandise; 10% Publishing; 4% misc; 2 to 4% Record sales. 

Adele is an exception and her 21 album of 2011 sold 30m. Her managers handle books and publishing - they are the quarterbacks and the artist is the CEO.

Over saturation is also a problem according to Adele's manager, 'The Internet content is everywhere; we're at saturation point which cheapens it. Sometimes you have to say no!  Being a gatekeeper to these opportunities is key.'

Not doing nothing but also not standing still either. Once an artist becomes a product of value, that's where the sales are.

  

The next step for music now is the transition from sales to streaming.