Art and home: two very different perspectives
I took some time yesterday to visit the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. I really wanted to see the Women in Revolt: Art and Activism in the UK 1970 - 1990 exhibition before the full madness of summer and the Edinburgh Festival begins. It’s an amazingly rich show, with a huge range of work from posters, to collage, to paper prints, film, painting, photography, documenting the pivotal role women and their art played in the significant social and cultural changes that occurred in the latter part of the 20th century.
It celebrates art and artists that haven’t really (until now) been given the recognition that they deserve. I really need to go back to look at it again and in the meantime devour the catalogue. But it is sobering to come face to face with the lack of rights that women had until only 40 odd years ago. It’s one of those shows I think everyone should be made to go and see!
In contrast, over in Modern One, Du Ho Suh’s Tracing Time exhibition is another, very different visual and sensory treat. One of the key theme's of Do Ho’s work is the notion of home - what it is and where it is. I was struck by this question on the label for one of the works “is home a place or a feeling?” Maybe it’s both - and I feel my response to that is part of another post and other work.
The work is this show is very much about the physical dimensions of a home. There’s some really thought provoking images created with thread on paper, and others using computer generated images too. Again well worth a look.
It did strike me tho’ as I was driving home, about the different responses to home in these 2 shows. So much of the work in Women in Revolt was created in the home, using material of and in daily use the home, due to economic and domestic pressures of being at home, being a “good housewife” and trying to maintain life as an artist. Whereas Du Soh has taken such a different approach to using the home as a basis for his work. Having the luxury of taking all the furniture out of his apartment to create paper rubbings of the whole space. Such a contrast to work in the other show, highlighting the pressure women were (and sadly still are) facing in finding a home, particularly if they have had to leave a marriage/relationship.
There are of course a different set of cultural and political influence and nuances in his work, but it really is such a quiet contrast to work in the Women in Revolt show. And for me anyway, did highlight some of the different ways women and men experience, and use the home in art.