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Richard Hamilton – Protest Pictures and Jim Lambie’s Secret Affair Review |
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Written by Rosie Whitehead
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 Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens make for a welcome sojourn from the city centre’s streets crammed with frazzled Fringe goers and persistent promoters. Nestled among the beautifully landscaped and planted surroundings, Jim Lambie’s oversized metallic keyholes sit conspicuously. They invite you to stand in them, admire the view framed by them or even leap through them, as if you might find a Wonderland the other side.
In the more conventional gallery setting of Inverleith House, a range of Richard Hamilton’s work has been selected as a reflection on his interest in the relationship between the individual and the State. The most powerful room contains his trilogy of pieces based on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In one piece, The Subject, a photograph of a member of the Orange order has been enhanced and altered with precise blocks of colour. This accurate style is then contrasted by the juxtaposing lurid smears of excrement surrounding a sneering prisoner in another warped photograph, The Citizen. A stroll around the gallery will present you with a record of Mick Jagger and art dealer Robert Fraser’s arrest for possession of cannabis in 1967, his impressions of the murder of four protesting students at Kent State University in 1970 and his violent repulsion at the current situation in Iraq.
Whether you fancy a gentle potter around idyllic grounds or a thought provoking insight into a British artist’s life-spanning interest in political activism, The Royal Botanic Gardens are well worth a visit during the festival and beyond.
- Richard Hamilton – Protest Pictures and Jim Lambie’s Secret Affair
- Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens
- 31st July to 12th October
- Times vary
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