Elisabeth Mahoney 

Hmmm…

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, EdinburghRating: ***
  
  


Hmmm... is the second in a series of selections from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's permanent collections by a contemporary artist. This time the picks are by David Shrigley, known for creating funny, absurdist sculptures, photographs and books, as well as interventions in public spaces (such as painting eyes on to the bark of a fallen tree). You can't help but expect an unusual, cheeky choice of work from Shrigley, and hope for some insight into his own art practice from the selection he has made.

Such insights occur, despite the fact that some of the artists picked were unknown to Shrigley until he began sifting through the gallery's stores. Mostly, Hmmm... reflects a moment of connection between an artist and a collection. Shrigley quotes Joseph Kosuth - "art 'lives' through influencing other art" - to describe this two-way process, highlighted by such exhibitions.

Shrigley's choices include Tadek Beutlich's woodcut, The Frog, a sombre-toned but gently comic image. Like a potato with bony legs, this is a surreal frog, with a thin black moustache-line for a mouth, and something of Basil Fawlty's demeanour about him. Marcel Duchamp's Coin de Chasteté, two erotic sculptures in bronze and soft-pink dental plastic, lock together in saucy union. They were the artist's wedding present to his wife, Teeny. "We usually take it with us, like a wedding ring, no?" Duchamp once commented. Shrigley surely loves this detail.

Darker moods are present, too (in Leon Kossoff's Portrait of Father, or John Bellany's The Ventriloquist), but this is largely a romp of a selection, with a sweet edge to it, very much echoing the mood of Shrigley's work. Maureen Hodge's tapestry, A Hill for My Friend, is a daisy-covered hillock reaching up to a summer sky, while Pat Douthwaite's lithograph, Japanese Lady With a Locust, has a quirky, cartoonish quality to it. Scottie Wilson, an artist with little formal training, did exhibit in galleries, but preferred to show his work - such as the watercolour of a several-headed monster included here - in an old bus.

In the corridor outside, there is a selection of Shrigley's work. Two photographs document a project in which he displayed his own art, a placard and a portrait, on a bus. It's a fascinating moment of connection, a meeting of artistic spirits. Just as intended, it makes you think, "Hmmm... "

· Until February 24. Details: 0131-624 6200.

 

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