New exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery

Beholder is a collection of more than 40 pieces of art united not because they belong to the same period or movement, but because they are all considered beautiful.

The Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh asked high profile curators and artists to nominate a work that fits their personal view of beauty.

The result is an exhibition that includes works from a diverse collection of artists and designers such as abstract artist Callum Innes, modernist architect Sir Basil Spence, visual artist George Wylie, and painter Giorgio Morandi. The exhibition will also include works by Yoko Ono, Turner Prize nominees Karla Black and Nathan Coley, and painter L.S. Lowry.

The selections, donated by private and public collections from as far a field as New York and Berlin, create an unusual and contemporary take on the idea of beauty. Classical forms are side by side with modernist architecture.

Beholder will also invite members of the public to share their views and tastes on what is beautiful via a Facebook page and at a series of events that coincide with the exhibition.

The exhibition will be on display from 19 November 2011 to 18 February 2012.

Pat Fisher, Talbot Rice’s principal curator, said:

Democratic participation was central to the idea behind this project. If beauty proves to have no fixed or stable form, its integrity may be based upon the fact that it brings people together to openly discuss values and ideas.

Pat Fisher

The project is part of the University’s celebration of David Hume’s tercentenary and was inspired by a quote from the Scottish Enlightenment figurehead:

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty

David Hume