Throughout August and early September the Edinburgh Art Festival hosted many exhibitions and events. I attended many of these events and witnessed most of the exhibitions. I thought I would catalogue my top 5 exhibitions below.

5. Ian Hamilton Findlay - Twilight Remembers @ Ingelby Gallery

Ian Hamilton Findlay (1925-2006) was a poet and artist whose work crossed many different types of media, themes and genre. In this exhibition the Ingelby Gallery focus on his video work with a piece called Carrier Strike (1977). This video incorporates photography and the moving image to present an engaging and decisive video. The exhibition also recalls Ian Hamilton Findlay's Little Sparta garden in the Pentland Hills of Edinburgh. This is Findlay's masterpiece and here we see boulders and stones, some of which have the names of Japanese warplanes carved onto them. The exhibition could be seen as an introduction to Findlay by presenting an element of his garden and a selection of his more abstract work (with the video of Carrier Strike) and this in itself presents a fantastic selection that is a joy to experience.
Ian Hamilton Findlay is one of the most innovative and experimental artists to come out of Scotland. The work is delightful and offers an insight to Findlay and his fantastic body of work.

4. David Michalek - Figures Studies and Slow Dancing @ Summerhall

A large scale video work - Figure Studies and Slow Dancing, is pretty much summed up by its title. The video installation consists of three large screens, which project a series of different figures moving in slow motion. Taking the photographer Muybridge as an inspiration, we view a piece that analyses movement and the human body. It is compelling to watch, as the bodies move through space and time with graceful precision.

3. Cheer Up! It's Not The End Of The World @ Edinburgh Printmakers

Edinburgh Printmakers presented a group show based around the end of the world in response to the Mayan prediction that the world will end in 2012. Artists on show included: Ricky Allman, Martin Barrett, Gordon Cheung, Etienne Clement, Jake & Dinos Chapman, David Faithfull, Damien Hirst, Konstantin Kalinovich, Kris Kuksi, Lori Nix and Andy Warhol.
This work incorporated prints, photography and sculpture and showcased many interpretations of doom and paranoia. The gallery space was utilised and each unique work seemed to express itself in relation to the other pieces on show. This created a cohesive and enjoyable show that took the viewer to the end of the world, but in an enjoyable way.

2. Mike Peters - Lying and Liars / B.S. Johnson's Paradigm @ Collective Gallery

A joint exhibition from Glasgow based sculpture Mike Peters and avant garde writer and film maker B.S. Johnson (1933-1973). Taking on the concept that all fiction is lying, the Collective Gallery present an exhibition that showcases the illustrative sculptures by Mike Peters in tandem with the experimental film Paradigm (1969) from Johnson.
Johnson's film looks to ask questions of language and the spoken word and cements his avant garde and experimental reputation.Peters sculptures are playful by nature, being somewhat comic strip in style. Both artists compliment one another with very different takes on the theme with Peters bringing us up to date and Johnson presenting a masterclass from a truly original artist.

1. Dieter Roth @ Fruitmarket Gallery

Dieter Roth (1930-98) is an artist who has not exhibited in Edinburgh since 1970. His work involves cataloguing his life and accumulating junk and rubbish and exhibiting this rubbish in engaging and innovative ways. TV screens present Dieter at work in his studio, as well as being asleep and going to the bathroom. Roth was an artist who lived every moment as a work of art and this is explicitly showcased here. The screens take over the bottom floor of the gallery and fill the space with intriguing imagery.
Roth was born in Iceland but had German-Swiss heritage. His work however seems to have no discerning origin and goes beyond any cultural or geographical restrictions or influence. He appears to be influenced by life itself, his own life to be precise. The work exhibited does not present a self-obsessed, or self-indulgent artist, but someone who is prepared to put his personal life in a gallery for all to see and present it in a method that is truly captivating.