3 August 2012

Cinema as Primatology, with artist Rachel Mayeri

5—6.30pm

Creativity is considered to be a divide between humans and other species, but do we share basic preferences for novelty and perhaps even for form and content with our closest relations?

Coinciding with Rachel Mayeri’s installation, Primate Cinema: Apes as Family at Edinburgh College of Art, this panel discussion will explore similarities and differences in perception, cognition and socio-emotional behaviour between humans and chimpanzees, through the perspectives of artists Rachel Mayeri and Andrea Roe and The Arts Catalyst's curator Dr Rob La Frenais.  

Free to attend, booking required.

9 August 2012

Electric Bookshop

6.30 - 8.00pm

7th edition of the Electric Bookshop, looking at the future of books and the written word.  Curated by Peggy Hughes, Padmini Ray Murray and Claire Stewart.

Free to attend.

16 August 2012

Panel discussion: The Topography of Memory

2–5pm

Within this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, a number of high profile artists’ projects are directly engaged with the physical terrain of landscape, bringing together elements of Land Art, performance, sculpture, drawing and the notion of a journey. Ideas of participation, exchange or collaboration are at the core of these projects and in the practises of the artists involved.

This afternoon of conversations is an opportunity to discuss the ideas and ambitions informing works including Craig Coulthard’s Forest Pitch and NVA’s Speed of Light, with artists Angus Farquhar and Craig Coulthard, and Edinburgh College of Art academics Edward Hollis, Neil Mulholland and Angela McClanahan. Together they will consider some of the historical precedents for these works, many of which continue to resonate within individual and collective memory.

This event is a collaboration between Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh Art Festival and NVA.

Free to attend, booking required. 

25 August 2012

Barbara Hammer: Incorporating ‘The Lesbian Museum’ and ‘The Hidden Hammer’

3pm

Fresh from retrospectives at the Tate Modern, MoMA and Jeu De Paume, the acclaimed pioneer of queer cinema Barbara Hammer showcases some of her radical films and talks about the body of work that has made her an internationally celebrated artist and feminist.

Tickets: £5 (£4)

28 August 2012

Lecture: The Battle for Leonardo: Curating and Connoisseurship

6—7.30pm

For an artist of Leonardo's almost overwhelming fame, there is astonishingly little agreement as to what he actually painted. Thus the choice of Leonardo’s works for the exhibition at the National Gallery in London 2011 received considerable attention (with worries expressed in some quarters as to what was left out).

This lecture by Luke Syson, formerly Curator of Italian Painting before 1500 and Head of Research at the National Gallery in London and responsible for the recent Leonardo exhibition, focuses on three of the most debated paintings: the Madonna Litta in St. Petersburg, the newly restored London Virgin of the Rocks and the Buccleuch Madonna of the Yarnwinder.

In doing so, Syson will consider the role of traditional connoisseurship as set against what we learn from documentary and, in particular, scientific evidence. What was considered a Leonardo in the years around 1500 and how might we answer - or even ask - that question today?

Luke Syson is the Iris and B Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

This event is funded by the Association of Art Historians and is a joint initiative between the University of Edinburgh (History of art), Edinburgh Art Festival and National Galleries of Scotland.

Free to attend, booking required.

Call 0131 624 6560

31 August 2012

The Ellie & Oliver Show

12—12.30pm

The last broadcast of the Ellie & Oliver Show during the festival promises to be as honest, engaging and as fun as the ones which have come before it. Listen in at: www.ellieandoliver.co.uk/listenlive.

And after the show, join Ellie Harrison and Oliver Braid as they host Ellie & Oliver's Afternoon Special, a live event at the Edinburgh Art Festival pavilion, St. Andrew Square.

To find out more about the Ellie & Oliver Show, visit: www.ellieandoliver.co.uk/.