Axolotl Gallery on Dundas Street have been successfully drumming up interest in their opening-night exhibition of work by Kam Chan, Christine Clark, Paul Mowat, Sofie Fischer Rasmussen and Sarah Wilson (Issue 194).
However, the initial invitation omitted to mention a time. Spurtle has no problem with that. It's an age-old ploy we regularly use ourselves – along with omitting to mention a venue or indeed omitting to send out invitations at all – when organising potentially expensive parties for readers, offspring, or loved-ones.
A subsequent Axolotl invite arrived with more complete details and this curious proviso: 'As part of the gallery is in darkness due to the installation of a camera obscura, alcohol will be limited to one glass'.
The wording suggests several intriguing possibilities:
1. Axolotl have deliberately installed a camera obscura in order to limit, on health-and-safety grounds, the amount of pricey booze offered to art lovers. Such a move would place the gallery at the cutting edge of Edinburgh's thriving Hospitality in Austerity movement.
2. Axolotl are politely restricting the alcohol consumption of those art-lovers who attend such events carrying more than one glass or a bucket brought from home.
3. Axolotl will restrict guests to simultaneously sipping alcohol in the dark from one glass among all of them, in which case we predict a riot, a serious accident, or 'fun and games'. Possibly all three.
An impeccably behaved Spurtle correspondent will attend tomorrow evening's event and report back in due course.
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