World-class collection pops up in Dunoon
ARTIST ROOMS is a world-class art collection owned jointly by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland which pops up in often unexpected venues across the UK.
A couple of months ago I wrote here about the brilliant Louise Bourgeois exhibition – at Aberdeen Art Gallery until June 9 – which is part of the scheme.
Another venue which has benefitted from ARTIST ROOMS is Dunoon Burgh Hall. In 2017, to mark its reopening to the public as a contemporary arts centre after being saved from demolition, an exhibition of Andy Warhol portraits and self-portraits was held in the historic building.
This followed on from an earlier ARTIST ROOMS show, held in 2012, before the Hall was fully refurbished, featuring work by groundbreaking American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who died in 1986.
These diverse exhibitions offer up a fantastic chance for people who don’t live close to major galleries to see world-class art.
This summer, another ARTIST ROOMS doozy is being played out at Dunoon Burgh Hall in the form of beautifully intricate artwork by Latvian-American artist Vija Celmins (born 1938).
The show, part of the venue’s 150th anniversary, offers a chance to see artworks by an artist renowned in the contemporary art world, but whose pieces are rarely seen in the UK.
The group of 20 works on paper were made between 1975 and 2010. Celmins is part of a generation of artists based in Los Angeles during the 1960s, who made work using found images. Her work is based on photographs of nature.
Now 85, she continues to create exquisitely intricate works featuring oceans, night skies and galaxies, deserts and spiders’ webs. A painstakingly slow method of composition is characterised by the extraordinary precision of her approach.
The display at Dunoon Burgh Hall features three unique graphite, charcoal and eraser drawings as well as intaglio and relief prints.
ARTIST ROOMS Vija Celmins is at Dunoon Burgh Hall until August 18.