In September's Issue 198 we had room enough for barely a microdot's worth of gallery news. Below are more extended highlights. Further previews and reviews will follow through the month.
At Axolotl on Dundas Street, David will show from 9–27 September. It's a mixed show of photography and an installation by 12 artists, including Susan Richards's heartfelt contemplation of her late father David.
'Amongst many gifted objects from my parents' house in London,' she writes, 'I chose to export a bust of Michaelangelo's 'David' to Edinburgh soon after my Dad had passed.
'Being most familiar with portrait and documentary photography, I set about asking men to sit for portraits, the intention being to mimic the pose and orientation of the original. Careful post processing of the images in David is a direct reinterpretation of the finish of the bust, pale and smooth.'
[img_assist|nid=2106|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=205|height=640]Plight of the Bumblebee (from 8–15 September) at Broughton Street's Union Gallery will include works by Jenny Matthews (see 'Pollen Count', right), Janet Melrose, Dylan Lisle, and the New York-based sculptor Hannah Haworth. All have shown before here, and are worth seeing again.
The exhibition's amusing title trips lightly over a profoundly serious issue: declining bee populations around the world. A generous 20 per cent of all proceeds raised will go to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
Meanwhile, at Northumberland Street's Gallery on the Corner A Journey in Clay will show from 9–24 September. Here you can follow Annie Dow's drawings and three-dimensional adventures under the expert guidance of Sandra Brown at the Creative Ceramics Studio.
Finally, don't forget an intriguing exhibition reintroducing a neglected talent to a Scottish audience. Claire Ritson's works (including 'Spanish Cottage', shown below) will show at the Colours Gallery on Dundas Street until 30 September.
As painterly worth and long-held critical judgments (or lack of them) come under the microscope, there is every chance of feathers flying in art-history circles.
Spurtle's first impressions are that the works are superb – but tell us what you think.
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