The recently launched programme for the fifth Edinburgh Art Festival includes 50 exhibitions of both local and international artists and groups across Edinburgh Galleries.
Among the headline exhibitions at the month long festival, running 31 July to 31 August, will be a Tracey Emin 20-year retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; celebrated Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller at the Fruitmarket Gallery; Alexander Heim at Doggerfisher; Andrew Grassie paintings at Talbot Rice Gallery; Richard Hamilton Protest Pictures at Inverleith House; Elizabeth Blackadder at the Scottish Gallery; Chad McCail at Edinburgh Print Makers, and Richard Wilson at The Grey Gallery (once again in temporary residence in a derelict warehouse).
Kay Rosen and Susan Collis, will be featured in the new Ingleby Gallery, with Mark Wallinger the first featured artist in the Billboard for Edinburgh project, where the artist exhibits on the exterior of the building.
Frances Richardson returns to the Corn Exchange
Gallery, Ian Healy shows at Attic Salt, Japanese artist Takaya Fujii, in collaboration with poet Gerry Loose, will show at the Scottish Poetry Library, Pavel Buchler is at Sleeper, Emily Young at Bourne Fine Art and Martha Rosler shows at Stills.
Meanwhile Jane Frere shows work inspired by a residency in East Jerusalem at Patriothall Gallery at WASPS.
"It is no secret that Edinburgh has a vibrant visual arts
community," says Joanne Brown, Director of the Edinburgh Art Festival."
"The EAF is a catalyst for the development of new and exciting work,
showcasing the full range of the city's galleries and artists at a time
when the eyes of the world are on Edinburgh."
Alongside the exhibitions there will be over 120 associated events including artists' talks, screenings, debates, tours and family projects - with StickerCurator, and an expanded Art Late 28 August (see below).
The Edinburgh Art Festival spreads out from the city centre to Portobello, with the continued participation of Big Things in the Beach, and Musselburgh where Eskmills shows work for the first time.
Group Shows
As well as Collective's annual show, many of the exhibitions presented in spaces participating in the EAF for the first time this year will also feature work by groups of artists.
The Golden Record, Sounds of the Earth at Collective will feature the records included with the two Voyager spacecraft.
Mutatis Mutandis at Embassy showcases work that moves between performance installation, photography, video and painting.
Eskimo at Eskmills in Musselburgh sees fourteen artists - of differing degrees of experience - responding to the new gallery space, a former industrial fishing net factory.
Work by Marion Preez, Keith Winter, Dongfang Gao and Daniel Smernicki will be shown in c a m e r a - the "small chamber" - a new exhibition space at the entrance to the Museum of Edinburgh.
The new Edinburgh artist-run initiative, echo, offers an exhibition on the (sibling) rivalry between Edinburgh and Glasgow - each of the five featured artists has chosen an artist based in Glasgow to either collaborate with or to submit work for the show.
Throughout the Edinburgh Art Festival TotalKunst - an open access, artist led initiative run by the Forest visual arts working group. - will be holding a variety of exhibitions and events in celebration of the creative spirit of the Edinburgh summertime.
The Public Realm as gallery
In Portobello alongside a number of works on the Promenade, Big Things on the Beach will be presenting the Garden Gallery which sees artists locating a series of works in the gardens of private houses.
Recent GSA sculpture student Ric Warren will show work on the theme of climate change in Charlotte Square in a collaboration between EAF and the International Book Festival.
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop will show work in the gardens surrounding the workshops
Advocates' Close will become the focus of a series of works as part of Edinburgh Close Up and watch out for video art appearing unsolicited across the city in Boris Eldagsen's "spam: the musical" .
Meanwhile a derelict building in the city will be transformed spectacularly in Ettie Spencer's Tobacco House.
Walks, talks, tours and events
The events programme developed to animate and interrogate the exhibitions this year includes four specialist tours led by the art historian, Lucy Gallwey, each of which visits a number of shows.
There's an introduction to collecting by the Scottish Arts Council in collaboration with Doggerfisher.
Debates include one led by Jane Frere taking her East Jerusalem residency as its starting point, and an expanded number of artists' talks including Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Tracey Emin, Andrew Grassie, Richard Hamilton, Kay Rosen, Ettie Spencer, Richard Wilson and more.
Meanwhile the ever-popular trips to Little Sparta - Ian Hamilton Finlay's poetical, garden art project in the Pentlands - are once again on offer this year and there's a series of salons, artist talks and a symposium on the context of Edinburgh and its complex relationship with contemporary art.
Mixing It Up in Art Late and Edinburgh Scavenger Hunt
Art Late returns for a second year. Taking place simultaneously in at least 12 galleries on the evening of 28 August, Art Late 2008 sees an expanded programme of events in the galleries with guest Djs, comedy, poetry and more.
Edinburgh hosts its first Festival Scavengers event this year through association with Escalator East to Edinburgh. Joshua Sofaer's Scavenger events have already hit the headlines in New York (PS1), San Francisco (Museum of Modern Art) and London (Tate Modern) - teams begged borrowed, bartered, and bluffed their way around the cities, scavenging items relating to artworks in the hope of winning a £2,000 cash prize. 40 "scavenger teams" will be out and about in Edinburgh on 16 August and the outcomes of their efforts will then go on show in City Art Centre.