This exhibition, drawn from the archives, looks at the careers of a number of Scottish Artists and focuses particularly on Demarco’s formative and successive collaborations with Royal Scottish Academicians and Associates from the early 1960s to the present. Artists include Jack Knox, Paul Neagu, Will Maclean, David Mach, Elizabeth Blackadder and architect Malcolm Fraser.
The exhibition also reveals Demarco as an assiduous promoter of Scottish artists, aiming to raise interest in them abroad and place their work in galleries and major collections. But he was always more than an exhibitions-man. It has been said that Demarco has a genius for forging connections. The exhibition demonstrates this in several directions. His major projects in Scotland (including Strategy Get Arts), his journeys (such as the Edinburgh Arts voyages), his projects abroad (for example in Venice and Sarajevo), all testify to this, as do the discussions and conferences and the many meetings and encounters he set up between artists. All these rested on his belief that dialogue and creative exchange are at the heart of culture and of his own enterprise. The exhibition follows four main sections: The Early Programmes, Making Connections, Work in Europe and Projects in Scotland.
Before The Richard Demarco Gallery opened in 1967 there was no venue to see avant-garde art in Edinburgh or indeed Scotland. Within its first year the Gallery gained international significance and secured its position as a much needed platform to further contemporary Scottish artists. His drive for promoting artistic and cultural exchange is illustrated in his explanation of the role of his gallery:
‘‘In this age of rapid progress, the role of art becomes increasingly important at an alarming rate. As a direct consequence of this, the role of art galleries is constantly tested and questioned, and it is doubtful whether the concept of a merely commercial gallery continues to keep pace with the demands of society. Our own gallery, working in an area where contemporary international art has not flourished, had this problem more clearly before it than many galleries securely settled in the London commercial world. Our aim is to be at one and the same time a commercial gallery which must sell paintings to survive and a gallery with the important function of education. Although the Gallery is a non-profit distributing institution, it must sell paintings so that artists may earn a living and the right for their work to be viewed by large audiences. As an educational institution, it must be willing to show difficult and avant-garde works which have a moral right to be seen in an area which has not as yet seen or fully appreciated such work.”
Presented by the RSA and curated by Arthur Watson, Euan MacArthur and Steve Robb.
Free Gallery Talk hosted by the Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy:
Saturday 25 September @ 2pm
Web Link: http://www.royalscottishacademy.org/pages/exhibition_frame.asp?id=88
