Two artists wage a quiet war on violence of military might

Two shows at Summerhall stand out for their excellence, minimalism and elegance. Both engage, in quite different ways, with political and military violence employing an aesthetic of “beauty and truth” in order to make their point.

Alastair MacLennan, an Irishman and graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, has for decades now been regarded as one of the most talented and profound performance and visual artists of his generation. His work has evolved markedly but has always kept its course — Zen-derived, slow-paced, quiet and dignified. MacLennan combines performance, object-based installation, and drawings, into what he calls “Actuations”.

In Air a Lair, such an amalgam allows for an expansive vocabulary, which includes oblique commentary on the Troubles. In one, newspapers from Northern Ireland form an installation. Each numbered paper is presented in perspex so that the work can be read while walking; one side, which has been darkened like a blackboard, is chalked the word “blackout” while the obverse remains intact. Such a work speaks of fear, censorship and political manipulation.

MacLennan, influenced by the arte povera movement, uses discarded materials and objects are part of his artistic lexicon: spectacles, lenses, polythene, branches, netting and peat all make an appearance here. In his Actuations, MacLennan makes frequent use of such material, which he often attaches to his body. Attired completely in black, MacLennan moves painstakingly, deliberately and with scrupulous choreography. His performances contemplate and challenge our time-based existence.

Rose Frain has also been influenced by arte povera but unlike MacLennan, most of her objects are not found, or used. They are, rather, procured and here, in many cases, they originate from the British Army.

Frain’s work This Time in History, What Escapes offers a complex critique of political, military and cultural structures, presented as a room-based installation, which makes use of storage cupboards, walls and careful lighting. Frain explores British military involvement in Afghanistan. It is carefully nuanced, not a simplistic antiwar protest. One wall is dominated by emergency signalling mirrors; the fragmented reflections of the audience suggest we are all somehow implicated in such military mis-adventures.

Frain tackles the difficult case of Marine A, convicted of the manslaughter of a wounded Taliban fighter. Here her focus on the language of the battlefield (the c-word, used under great duress), takes her into the territory of Germaine Greer and radical feminism.

These artists demonstrate the continuing capacity of art to take on some of the great moral and social dilemmas of our time and to deal with them with subtlety and force.

Alastair MacLennan, Air a Lair, until September 30

Rose Frain, This Time in History, What Escapes, until September 24