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  • From 18 April 2026 George Wyllie and the Elephant in the Library In 1996 a study day was organised around...
    Fergus Purdie RSA, Patrick Geddes Day 1996 - George Wyllie event, image Liz Purdie

    From 18 April 2026

    George Wyllie and the Elephant in the Library 

     

    In 1996 a study day was organised around a Perth-born polymath Patrick Geddes (1854 – 1932). It included talks by Murdo Macdonald HRSA and Fergus Purdie RSA in the A.K. Bell Library. 

     

    George Wyllie RSA proposed a performative sculpture in response to Geddes’s time in India when he was honoured as ‘Maharajah for a Day’. George constructed a plywood elephant which was garlanded by a group of children in North Muirton Community Centre before being processed to the library led by a piper.

     

    Until now the only evidence for George’s input was a flyer and a photograph of the elephant by Liz Purdie, but a recently excavated video tape documenting the making of the elephant, the procession and George’s speech in the library.  

     

    After digitisation a series of images from the film will be presented as a five-metre-long banner in The Window gallery shared by Fergus Purdie and Arthur Watson. Prior to this we will engage with the community centre and through local press to contact former participants and gather their memories of the event. Material around the performance will be passed to the George Wyllie Foundation in Greenock. 

     
  • 1 January - 21 February 2026 Marina Abramović | Rhythm 10 Revisited 1973: Abramović travels with a group of fellow...
    Rhythm 10 by Marina Abramovic at Melville College, Edinburgh at Edinburgh Arts 1973. Presented as part of Eight Yugoslav Artists at the Richard Demarco Gallery. Courtesy of Richard Demarco Archive & Demarco Digital Archive (University of Dundee). 

    1 January - 21 February 2026

    Marina Abramović | Rhythm 10 Revisited

     

    1973: Abramović travels with a group of fellow Yugoslavian artists to Scotland where she performs Rhythm 10 at the Edinburgh Festival. This is her first performance, and she later describes it as ‘the moment that I knew, that I had found my medium’ (Royal Academy 2023).

     

    The invitation had come from Richard Demarco HRSA who also asked Joseph Beuys to witness the simultaneous performances by five of the Yugoslavian artists at the gymnasium of Melville College, part of his Eight Yugoslav Artists season in 1973.

     

    This exhibition in the Window gallery in Perth will show eight panels from Demarco’s photographs made for the RSA exhibition 10 Dialogues: Richard Demarco, Scotland and the European Avant Garde. Both Richard Demarco and Marina Abramović are Honorary Royal Scottish Academicians.

     

    The exhibition will open at the stroke of midnight on 1st January to mark the beginning of the Royal Scottish Academy bicentenary year.