Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Dundee
10 Dialogues : Richard Demarco, Scotland and the European Avant Garde
Watson proposed the exhibition to the Royal Scottish Academy and National Galleries Scotland as a collaboration, curated by himself and McArthur. He visited Poland to negotiate key loans directly from Abakanowicz and the Kantor archive. Watson also visited the studios of Mach and Yule to commission new bodies of work, funded by Creative Scotland.
10 Dialogues was the first independent survey of Demarco’s interactions between Scotland and Europe. Research focused on exploring the work of, and relationships between, key European artists brought to Scotland by Demarco (Abramovic, Abakanowicz, Beuys, Kantor, Neagu & Uecker) and Scottish artists promoted by him in continental Europe (Mach, McEwan, MacLennan and Yule). The exhibition united key works from major collections, recent work from artists’ studios and new work commissioned by the curators. Work was brought from Poland, Germany and the UK.
Richard Demarco’s recent work had been most visible through exhibitions drawn from his extensive collection and archive - essentially of small scale works. The curators felt it to be of key importance to revisit the scale and ambition of his major Edinburgh International Festival exhibitions, presented in collaboration with the governments of Germany, Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland.
Five artists exhibited room-size multi-part installations, which more than matched the ambition of the curators who chose to add context by drawing on research from their Digital Archive Project (McArthur, Watson & Shemilt, 2005-2008). Over 600 photographic images were sequenced on ten monitors, one for each artist, exploring the artists’ development and interactions with Demarco, and in many cases with each other.
The exhibition substantiated the curators’ view that Demarco’s overriding purpose had been to heal the post-war political divide through cultural dialogue, and led the Scottish Parliament to formally debate the future of Demarco’s archive and confirm support for its development.
