This, the first in a new series of exhibitions focusing on contemporary Scottish art, has a distinctly utopian feel to it. Called Visions for the Future, the Fruitmarket's new project sounds like something William Morris might have dreamed up.
Ross Sinclair's show embraces utopianism full on. An installation artist with "real life" famously tattooed on his back and just as firmly imprinted in his work as a theme, Sinclair tells it like it is in the contemporary reality of Scotland in consistently compelling and entertaining ways. Here, though, he's telling it like it was, at least until 1930, on the island of St Kilda, the most remote inhabited part of Britain until its evacuation almost 70 years ago. Long fascinated by the place, with its utopian-sounding life (a parliament that met daily to make decisions; no money, police, crime, clocks or calendars), Sinclair uses the idea of St Kilda to explore political, historical and contemporary ideas of the good life. Employing deliberately temporary, tacky materials to underline the fakery of this utopia, he has built a St Kilda toy town. It's funny, sad and savage as you wander through, playing simultaneously on the tragic history of this community, ruined through contact with the outside world, and the impossibility of our desire for utopia. There are, we see, no keys, geography, god, leaders or writing here (that all sounds fine), but neither do art or mirrors exist. Is that really what we want, asks this marvellously reflective work, at the same time nudging the new parliament down the road to learn from the past as it shapes the future.
The closest most of us come to the utopianism of William Morris is splashing out on his wallpaper. Martin Boyce leaves personal and political aspirations behind and instead focuses solely on wall coverings in When Now is Night, a fabulous spot of paper work. A black, grey and white geometric pattern papered on to the walls, it brings the cityscapes of 50s film noir to mind just as clearly as his other installation of fluorescent light fittings suspended overhead, suggest a spider's web. Seen one after the other, eyes still recovering from the bright light, Boyce's works revel in the glamour, energy and style of urban living, a world away from the lost quietude of St Kilda. Away from art galleries, of course, we continue to aspire to both, aware of the contradictions even as we do so. That's real life, in all its 20th-century glory.
• At the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, till November 30. Details: 0131-225 2383.
