Last weekend I visited the grey gothic city of Edinburgh. It was a beautiful stay, not least because I visited the fantastic Fruitmarket Gallery for their Anna Barriball show. I have loved Anna’s work ever since seeing it at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their Newspeak British Art Now show. It was a delight therefore to revisit those work which had first excited me, and to introduce newer ones.
The work above was a stunning video piece in which Anna filmed a piece of tracing paper as it was sucked against the fireplace at her home. It seems as if the house is breathing, and that the artist has managed to trace this breath, to make the architecture live. In the video documentary accompanying the exhibition she said that she discovered the effect when she was moving out of her flat and wanted to make a rubbing of the fireplace’s mouldings for her records. As she pressed the paper up against it this gentle sucking effect was demonstrated. Shown in a small dark room with a highly polished floor the video seemed to become part of the viewing space.
Anna’s work was beautifully show in the Fruitmarket space, with framed rubbings juxtaposed with new freestanding (ish) paper sculptures made by the artist wrapping herself in paper, and a mind bending site specific piece in which she had drawn a repeated pattern of pencil marks along the length of the wall. The thought of the eventual loss of this piece at the exhibition’s close was a poignant reminder of its transience and the fragility of the tracings she makes.
Artbook 