Sheila’s weekly update 20 August: A bit of fesitival-ing

I had a wee day out at the Edinburgh Festival this week checking out some of the art on show. The “big one” this year is the Grayson Perry “Smash Hits” at the National Gallery. It’s his first retrospective and it’s big – in every sense of the word. Big tapestries, big use of colour, big ideas. It was also very busy so I must go back and explore it in more detail. However, if you do go – make sure you head downstairs to the Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston show in the lower galleries. A different scale to the “big show” upstairs, but quietly wonderful. I also spent some time at the Talbot Rice Gallery, with Jesse Jones’s installation The Tower which was really powerful. As was the 45th Parrallel by Lawerence Abu Hamdan. Two contrasting video installations but both equally thought provoking.