Ergin Cavusoglu: Entanglement
Nahum Tevet: Seven Walks
Until October 3; Dundee Contemporary Arts

Best in Show
Until September 26 (Thurs to Sun); The Embassy, Edinburgh

Two works of art are currently holding the monopoly on DCA’s sizeable gallery space. One of them sends you running for cover, and the other lures you into forbidden territory. One surrounds you, while the other won’t let you in. One is video, the other a mass of plywood. They are worlds apart, but what connects them is the subtle sense that each is deeply rooted in the history of painting.

Ergin Cavusoglu, a Bulgarian-Turkish artist based in London, was once a mural painter, with classical concerns about the relationship between painting and architectural space. He has wrapped six video screens around the walls of a room at DCA, creating a moving mural which transforms the space into an infinite expanse of night sky. Baroque painters employed the same tricks 400 years ago, but where their skies were billowing with elegant angels, Cavusoglu’s are occupied with whirring helicopters. Both are symbols of a greater, all-seeing power from which you can’t escape.

You know they’re helicopters before you even see them, thanks to the malevolent soundtrack creeping around the darkened corners of the entrance corridor. The layered audio of purring blades can’t fail to put you on your guard as you edge your way in. Ever seen a mouse in the middle of a room? At the merest suggestion of danger they’ll head for cover. The same instinct will grip you in Cavusoglu’s installation.

You may have seen some of this artist’s work earlier in the year, as part of the Becks Futures exhibition at CCA. If so, you’ll know that his concern is with surveillance, and with the ambiguities of public and private space. Growing up in Communist Bulgaria Cavusoglu has had first hand experience of life with Big Brother, but it’s far too easy to blame the reds under the bed and leave it at that. The fact is that he didn’t have to go as far as Bulgaria to find surveillance helicopters to film. There were plenty available in East London.

The searchlights rake the night sky, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be irrationally scared of being picked out. If you can manage to stand your ground long enough, it becomes clear that minus their sound, these helicopters are almost entirely abstract. Their structures are visible only in a few quick frames, and otherwise all you see is lights, dancing yellow, red and blue against a pure black backdrop. There are no reference points in the ground or the sky. There are no human faces appearing in any cockpit. Entanglement is a moving abstract painting which absolutely dominates the space you’re in.

It takes a bit of adjustment time (comprising possible wobbling and guaranteed gormless blinking) to go straight from the oppressive, buzzing darkness of Entanglement into the bright, sunlit space of Nahum Tevet’s Seven Walks. The large gallery comfortably houses a sprawling mini-metropolis of painted plywood structures, all vaguely redolent of broken household furniture.

The Israeli artist, like Cavusoglu, showed at last year’s Venice Biennale. Judging by the current crop of shows in Scotland, there must be one year’s turnaround time between spotting an international talent and installing them in your gallery. Installation in this case was fraught with the difficulties of a wildcat strike in Israeli ports. As a result those who visited early got to witness the intricate operation of reconstructing the work exactly as it had been arranged in Tevet’s studio.

The pastel-coloured forms which make up the clutter are in themselves simple: rectangles, cubes, cylinders and cut-out circles. They recall, apparently, much of the Bauhaus architecture in Tevet’s home town of Tel Aviv. They also recall the pure forms of Minimalism, which were ever more reduced in the pursuit of one essential truth. Tevet turns this on its head by complicating the work – he spent seven years adding to it, not paring it down.

Seven Walks looks like a maze, and judging by the title you are sure there must be seven ways in. Prowling around the perimeter you can’t quite find that elusive entrance, or that perfect standpoint from which to understand the whole. It’s like trying to find your way around a junk shop, considering how to negotiate the piled up wardrobes and desks to get to the curious object tantalisingly out of reach. It’s Bauhaus meets Bethany. Bethany wins.

One of Edinburgh’s new artist-run galleries, The Embassy, is currently hosting its first member’s show, Best in Show. At a very reasonable five pounds for membership the result is a densely packed sweetie box of an exhibition, with over 60 entries of varying quality. Cheerfully curated with dog-show headings (The Trials, Half Breeds, and so on), it’s got a fair bit of dross, a good deal that is puzzling when seen in isolation, and a number of pieces which make it well worth a visit.

Paul Carter’s installation doesn’t disappoint, Dan Griffith’s photographic collection turns a wry eye on corporate attempts at radicalism, Zoe Fothergill’s biological drawings show stunning fluency, and watch out for Erin Munro’s brilliant use of the wee cubby hole at the back.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 19.09.04