Young Athenians
Until November 12; RSA, Edinburgh

The Visitor And The Other
Until October 22; RSA, Edinburgh

Lurking in the Royal Scottish Academy’s archives is a lavishly illustrated collection of portraits by Edinburgh miniature painter, Benjamin W Crombie, in the 1840s. Published under the title Modern Athenians, it was a Who’s Who of prominent Edinburgh citizens at the time, from judges and academics to the notorious characters of the Old Town streets.

It was a time when Edinburgh was doing its utmost to live up to its reputation as the Athens of the North. Neoclassical architecture was springing up across the New Town, and would reach its apotheosis on The Mound, where the relatively young Royal Scottish Academy would build its temple in 1850.

The RSA had emerged from a period of discontent among Edinburgh’s artistic community, who battled for greater recognition and self-determination. They got both, and became so embedded in Edinburgh’s establishment that for decades younger artists have railed against them.

Over the last few years the RSA has done its best to chip away at that stuffy reputation, but now they’ve really blown those cobwebs away. By inviting some truly 21st century collectives into the building to curate their own shows, the RSA has gone where few other institutions would dare to tread.

Young Athenians is a loose grouping of Edinburgh artists who are connected by Embassy gallery and other artist collectives. Above all, it seems, they are linked by a common love of drinking and partying equalled only by the Hedonists of ancient Athens. Viewing the show, you wonder if some of the works are less important than the fun that went into making them.

Kim Coleman and Jenny Hogarth’s Gentle Shepherd, for example, consists of various cheery group portraits made at a toga party, complete with bed-sheet costumes and copious quantities of wine. In fact, the debris of that party, exhibited in the artists’ flat during the Edinburgh Art Festival, had an incisive edge to it which is lacking in the current show.

The oddest thing about this RSA show is its conservatism. It is made up almost wholly of framed pictures and neat sculptures spaced a respectful distance from each other. The content is pretty cheerful, and often quite silly, but it doesn’t present any real threat to the status quo.

With a twinkle in their eye, the Young Athenians play around with neoclassical ornament, pastiching the pastiches of the 19th century. They relish the naughtiness of being where they shouldn’t, thumbing their noses at the seriousness of it all. But they’re so busy blowing away the cobwebs, that they’re missing an opportunity to propose a credible alternative.

Perhaps, after all, they don’t want to upset the status quo. What they really want, like the frustrated artists of the late 18th century, is to be accorded their place in Edinburgh’s intellectual continuum. That desire comes across loud and clear in the display put together for the exhibition by the One O’Clock Gun.

The Gun is a free quarterly publication distributed around the pubs and cafés of the city, consciously modelled on Edinburgh’s 19th century scandal sheet, Blackwell’s. “Edinburgh merits, nay deserves, a new literary Renaissance,” intones their editor, not afraid of high pretensions. He goes on to make a direct comparison between Lucy McKenzie (the Gun’s illustrator) and William Hogarth.

Then it all goes back to drink. Six large wine glasses are displayed, relics of a 19th century drinking club for Edinburgh artists. Next to them sits the paraphernalia of The Top Slot Club, a modern-day “dining and convivial society” out of which The One O’Clock Gun grew. On the day when the RSA flings open its doors to brand new possibilities, it turns out to be too late. The artists have retreated deep into the comforts of history.

Meanwhile, in a room off the Young Athenians’ show, lies an exhibition which couldn’t be more different. Scottish Collective is the RSA’s showcase of three other artist-led initiatives around Scotland; it’s currently the turn of Generator Projects in Dundee. Their show, The Visitor And The Other, features the work of Andy Wake and Aileen M Stackhouse.

After a blast of Epicurean silliness from the Young Athenians, the Generator show comes as rather a shock. Loaded with the dark, tortured earnestness of 1970s performance art, you can’t help but wonder if you have arrived in front of yet another pastiche. While the deep, bassy growls of Wake’s Organ Magnificent fill the room, Stackhouse stands stiff on a ladder, making sweeping arcs of charcoal on the wall with arm outstretched.

She seems almost trance-like, which is no wonder, judging by the dense accumulation of charcoal on the wall. Each mark is a shadow of Stackhouse’s movements, a map of her existence through the course of the day. It’s a vision of intense physical focus which will stay with you long after the japes of the Young Athenians have faded.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 15.10.06