NEW work by Glasgow-based Marvin Gaye Chetwynd will be a highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF), which will stage more than 40 exhibitions, installations and events this August.

Under the direction of Sorcha Carey, the festival has grown to be the UK’s biggest annual celebration of the visual arts, attracting nearly 300,000 visitors last year.

New work has been a highlight of Carey’s five-year directorship and this year is no exception, with Chetwynd and Charles Avery both commissioned for the festival. Full details of their commissions will be announced next month.

Born in London, Chetwynd’s work intertwines performance, sculpture, painting installation and video. Her performances and video harness elements of folk plays, street spectacles, literature and multiple other genres. They generally employ troupes of performers and feature handmade costumes and props.

Chetwynd studied social anthropology at University College, London, before studying art at the Slade School of Fine Art and RCA. She has performed and exhibited internationally and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2012.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

THIS year’s programme will feature work by internationally renowned artists including the first exhibitions in Scotland by British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, who will exhibit new site-specific sculptures at The Fruitmarket Gallery, and a monumental installation of hundreds of framed works in a solo exhibition by renowned German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven at Talbot Rice Gallery. Dovecot Gallery will present the first exhibition in Scotland by Korean artist Kwang Young Chun, including 3D assemblages and a large-scale suspended sculpture, and London-based artist Beatrice Gibson will exhibit a new film at Collective.

The 2015 programme will also see the first solo exhibition in a public gallery by American artist John Chamberlain at Inverleith House and the first large-scale solo show in the UK by Tara Donovan, whose exhibition at Jupiter Artland will open up the Jacobean Manor House’s Ballroom to the public for the first time.

Significant presentations by Scotland’s leading contemporary practitioners include sculptural assemblages and paintings by Toby Paterson at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, made for Maggie’s cancer caring centres across Scotland, and a new permanent commission by Sara Barker for Jupiter Artland. The City Art Centre and The Queen’s Gallery will also showcase Scottish art, with both exhibiting comprehensive overviews drawn from the city’s collection and the Royal Collection.

DAVID BAILEY

THE largest exhibition of portraits in the UK by legendary photographer David Bailey will be shown at the Scottish National Gallery, and the National Museum of Scotland will provide insight into 18th-century Victorian photography and our own modern-day fascination with recording the world around us.

Edinburgh Printmakers will showcase a dynamic new photographic exhibition by Canadian artist Derek Michael Besant, while political artist-duo kennardphillipps will reveal new digital photomontage and installation work at Stills Gallery.

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery will present an exhibition featuring approximately 100 photographs focusing on the relationship between Lee Miller and Picasso, while the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will exhibit important work by the pioneer of Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein, predominantly from the 1990s, in addition to an exhibition of work by the 20th-century Dutch artist MC Escher.

Open Eye Gallery will focus on rarely seen works by John Bellany, in an exhibition of work selected with his wife and muse Helen Bellany, and the Scottish Gallery will feature new landscape paintings by James Morrison alongside work by Scotland’s most celebrated female artist, Joan Eardley.

International historical surveys include a retrospective of tapestries by Serbian-born textile designer Bernat Klein, the designer credited with saving the textiles industry in the Scottish Borders, at Dovecot Studios; portraits by 18th-century artist Jean-Etienne Liotard at the Scottish National Gallery; and the finest 19th-century Japanese porcelain at the National Museum of Scotland.

NEXT GENERATION

IN addition to the festival’s annual, city-wide commissions programme, EAF is supporting the next generation of artists from Scotland and beyond through a range of opportunities.

In 2015, for the first time, it is introducing a new annual exhibition platform intended to provide support and an international exposure for artists at the early stages of their careers. A minimum of three artists will be selected from an open call to present work as part of a group for the 2015 festival. Proposals will be selected by a panel led by Carey alongside artists Christine Borland and Craig Coulthard, both commissioned by EAF in the past two years to create new work for its programme.

Other festival exhibitions that support early-career artists will include a group show at The Number Shop featuring new work by ten studio residents and recent Scottish art school graduates; a new site-specific outdoor installation by Lauren Gault alongside an immersive painted environment by Samara Scott at Jupiter Artland; a group exhibition of artworks exploring the relationship between visual encounters and language at Rhubaba; and an immersive installation incorporating sound, video and drawn works by France-Lise McGurn as part of Collective’s 2015 Satellites Programme, a development initiative for emerging Scotland-based artists.

The Skinny Showcase, a platform for early-career artists in partnership with one of Scotland’s leading cultural publications, will also return to this year’s festival to showcase work by recent Scottish art school graduates, alongside degree show exhibitions by students from Edinburgh College of Art. ECA’s Tent Gallery will also feature an exhibition of performance and sound works originally conceived for Outlandia, a remote artist’s field station overlooking Ben Nevis.

ASSOCIATE PROGRAMME

EDINBURGH Art Festival’s associate programme, selected from a call for proposals, offers artists, curators and organisations without a year-round programme in the city the chance to participate in the festival.

This year’s associate programme includes exhibitions by the Dennis and Debbie Club at Codebase, David Sherry at Patriothall Gallery, Eva Isleifsdottir at South Gallery and the Travelling Gallery’s exhibition of work by Scottish Turner Prize winners and nominees in association with Tramway, Glasgow.

There will also be site-specific performances by Yvonne Buskie (in collaboration with musician Luke Sutherland and dancer Christine Devaney) and Deborah Marshall in an acoustic performance developed for Central Register House. Deveron Arts will curate a panel discussion with artist Anthony Schrag, and the Telfer Gallery will collaborate with the Scottish Book Trust and artist Abigale Neate Wilson to explore the shifting experience of cityscapes in the digital age. New work from artists and collaborators will also be exhibited at Garage, including a series of live art events.