The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Art in focus
Hospitalfield House, Arbroath, March 19-April 17
A major exhibition of work by Graham Fagen – who represented Scotland at the 56th Venice International Art Biennale – is coming to Arbroath’s Hospitalfield House.
Graham will reinterpret the body of work he made for his exhibition for Scotland + Venice 2015, which was originally commissioned and curated at Hospitalfield.
While the original exhibition was made for the four noble rooms of Palazzo Fontana on the Grand Canal, the exhibition of sculpture, drawing and moving images will be installed in the historic arts and crafts rooms of Hospitalfield.
Graham, a lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone, is one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. His work mixes media and crosses continents; combining video, performance, photography, and sculpture with text and music. His recurring artistic themes include plants, journeys, poetry and popular song as a means to focus on personal and shared experience and identity.
He is an artist who forms close collaborations in the making of his work and for his four-screen, moving-image work, The Slave’s Lament – a pivotal work within the exhibition – he brings together reggae singer Ghetto Priest, music producer Adrian Sherwood, classical composer Sally Beamish and members from Scottish Ensemble.
Inspired by the Burns’ poem of the same name written in 1792, the lamenting musical interpretation will draw viewers through the exhibition in its new location.
“I’m very excited to be able to display my Scotland + Venice exhibition back home in Scotland at Hospitalfield,” said Graham.
“We will be revealing two new works that we took to Venice but did not show, so viewers at Hospitalfield will be the very first to see these.”
Lucy Byatt, the director of Hospitalfield, said: “I’m delighted to be working with Graham again and to be bringing this exhibition in its new form back to Scotland.
“The four-screen film work, with its rich resonant sound emerging from the cedar room, is perfect. The great Rope Tree has spread its branches in the picture gallery and we will install the neon work high on the wall. The green light will bounce around the carved stone and wood of Hospitalfield House.
“It’s the first time that we have made a whole exhibition fit within the existing furniture and collections of this historic place.”
There are a series of events to accompany the show, including a conversation with writer Dan Kidner, a workshop by artist Laura Aldridge, heritage tours and a talk by Alasdair Sutherland.