SSA awash with ideas

ART critics get amazing perks. Last week it was a Twinings Earl Grey

teabag from Edinburgh's City Art Centre (they have an exhibition called

One for the Pot). This week a tin of Baxters soup arrived through the

post. I don't know what kind yet, because it was swathed in pink

adhesive paper by its senders, the Edinburgh Women Artists' Group.

Their Tin Trail at the Society of Scottish Artists' exhibition

consists of sculptures made from Baxters tins: ''Enough to feed 1000

people but the number of homeless is unknown.'' The group made the point

two ways, tin as precious object on a velvet cushion or tin used as a

numerical installation which merges with the floor, ignored or unseen

just like the home-

less.

The Tin Trail is just one small part of this year's SSA for which no

praise is too high. Ideas are a rare commodity in any field but its 99th

annual exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy (till October 30) is

awash with innovation, its scale invigorating in its energy, as though

the walls are not big enough to hold it in. What a joy!

This kind of success doesn't happen by chance. It relies on

open-minded encouragement of past presidents like Ogilvie, Wyllie, Rae,

and Behrens. The current president Lys Hansen is particularly dynamic

and the SSA programme -- of invited 1993 graduates; Art for a Better

World; Saturday workshops (on October 16, 23, and 30, sponsored by

Hydro-Electric); performance; French guest artists; Glasgow jewellery;

women artists and much more -- is backed by her council and exhibition

organisers Anne and Eric Wishart plus new printer Metro Press.

It is thanks to people like these that the 102-year-old SSA remains

remarkably unstuffy and young in spirit, always renewing its approach,

and its membership. This year more than ever non-members exhibit, a sure

sign that it is a truly open, democratic organisation with a national

membership from Orkney to Ayr and beyond. This eclectic nature makes it

a great place for browsing, buying -- and for bargains, especially if

you pay your #10 membership (#5 for under 25s), open to all, and so get

a discount. Not all the work is avant garde. The 434 exhibits include

plenty of traditional pictures and prints.

Peter Bevan's gold Buddha-ish figure, solid as a rock within his metal

cast prison greets you at the top of the stairs. Aim straight for the

far end, past Wyllie's jokey Harris tweed tram and Alan Rigg's wooden

performance platform, (he gave two superb performances last weekend, one

at the SSA, one at Kelvingrove) into a dark room where several of the 11

invited graduates exhibit.

Ross Turpie highlights royal tax evasion, Lucy Brown projects slides

onto a paper house, and Helen Denerley constructs a fabulous empress

statue out of beer-can metal. Best of all is Tomas Lewis's inspired

Concise History of Costume which literally climbs the walls. These suits

made out of carpet, wood, brick, and tiles happily won the #200 James

Munroe sculpture award.

Other 1993 graduates include Andrew Cranston (interesting wide open

flat lands); Brian McGurk, who fills a wall with a Paladinoesque

installation of archaeological finds; Julie Law (whose unsettling

portrait photos mounted on steel won the SSA prize); and Karen Dowd who

impressed me with her installation addressing the clinical examination

of skin tissue and hair. It also won the George Wyllie Prize.

While still including many exciting but straightforwardly presented

framed pictures and prints (Behrens, Shemilt, Fisher, Russell,

Beardsworth, Mack, Summerton, White, Scott, Todd, Murray, Downie,

McDonald, Carey are among the best), the SSA actively encourages artists

to reflect on social problems -- and offer comments in any medium they

choose.

In Art for a Better World, winner Val Shatwell, originally a jeweller,

makes a key point. Not long ago dying for a cause or country was assumed

to be the ultimate sacrifice. She asks that you ''make equal space for

the womanly concept of commitment -- that you are willing to live for,

and go on living for, what you believe in and love.''

Other noteworthy work in this section is Curran's tall handbag fields

with their alpine cows and Bremner's constructions. Elsewhere Ganley's

Neon Streets, McColl's Fishers, MacAlister's L'Oreille, Coates-Walker's

Victim, and McCull-

och's Adam and Eve make an impact, as does Le Cabinet d'Art, which

first went to Montpellier full of Scottish art and now returns from

France containing work from four artists including Simone Verdell and

Maura Conseil, part of an ongoing exchange masterminded by artists Munro

and Miller.

Glasgow School of Art's jewellery department display is a triumph: 36

silver brooches and pins designed to be worn ''over the heart''

conveying a specific concern for the future of the planet. Pollution,

the Braer disaster, Yugoslavia, acid rain, and over-population are some

of the issues elegantly addressed by Rigg, Kelly, Dyer, McKinnie,

Street, McLay, White, Cameron, and other students. This professional

display should definitely tour.

Last but not least President Lys Hansen is represented by two

important paintings: The Pity and Look and Listen, which demonstrate

that large scale figuration is still alive and well in Scotland. Indeed

overall the SSA proves that Scottish artists have much to offer and that

serious stuff can be entertaining too.

Gerard Morris is gifted but lazy. Powerful linear draughtsmanship

combined with heroic story-telling (Celtic tales, St Brendan's Voyage,

now Boccaccio's Horse from The Decameron) has ensured his popular appear

so far. A series of monumental bathers and the Horatii from 1990-1 were

a perfect vehicle for his luminous, tactile surfaces patiently built up

with pastel on a gesso ground.

The new work (at Agnew's, London, till October 15) eschews this

technique for decorative oils of garish, gaudy still life vases or

semi-cubist/ futurist fractured figures. Fine, he was in a rut and

wanted to experiment, but it begins to show when work is rushed through

at top speed. Last-minute decisions are not always of the best.

Morris uses The Decameron to add weight and significance to his images

but it doesn't wash in these wet-off-the-easel paintings.

Up the street another Glaswegian, Steven Campbell, shows at

Marlborough Fine Art. First seen at the Talbot Rice where his large

pictures barely had room to breath, here they are divided between two

venues, one in south London. He looks better but overall still lacks the

intellectual rigour of his 1980s work.

In the tidal wash of the Festival some shows get overlooked but

happily last long enough to return to. Golden Warriors of the Ukrainian

Steppes at Edinburgh's City Art Centre is one to catch before October

17. Lavish, intricate, dazzling, stylish, these 171 golden treasures:

rings, pendants, bracelets, vessels, swords and bridle ornaments are

exquisite and incredibly sophisticated. All were made by nomadic

peoples, many by Scythians, Vikings, Khazars, Huns, and Mongols who

swept through the northern Black Sea area.

''Whatever storms and turmoil cross the face of the earth, the human

endeavour to create beauty triumphs,'' say their Kiev lenders. I won't

argue with that.