MacRitchie, Lynn
Known as an art critic and writer, Lynn MacRitchie also has a long-established practice as an artist, beginning in the seventies and including work in video, performance, photography and installation. She showed an early commitment to radical and progressive art when, in 1973, as a student of Fine Art, she organised both the ‘Three Day Event (Art and Society)’ and the ‘Participation Art Event’ at Edinburgh College of Art, inviting David Medalla, John Dugger, Steven Willats, Marc Chaimowicz, the Artists Placement Group and others to present work at the college. On moving to London in 1974, she became involved in the ‘Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile’ organised by Artists for Democracy at the Royal College of Art that October. The video tapes she made of the festival provide a unique record of an event now recognised as of historic importance.
As a writer, she was one of the first contributors to Performance Magazine and other innovative journals such as New Dance before moving into mainstream journalism with the Financial Times, for which she wrote about contemporary art for fifteen years (1991-2006). She returned to art making in the late 1990s and has since exhibited regularly in the UK and abroad. Her interest in video, performance and installation continues, and her most recent works are short films.
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Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibitions
1974
Sculptural Situations (solo performance, Art Meeting Place, London)1975
The World in a Grain of Sand (installation, Artists for Democracy, London)1999
Right on for the Darkness (installation, Market Place Gallery, London2000
Things to do in Paradise (installation, Party Unlimited Gallery, London)2004
Facing Medusa (video installation, screening, Showroom Gallery, London)2005
Into the Enchanted Forest (installation, Throgmortons’s, London )2013
The Towers of Ilium (single screen video film, Domo Baal Gallery, London)Group Exhibitions/Events
1969
Ceremony – The Words in the Trees (performance event devised with Alan Spence, Glasgow and Edinburgh)1973
Three Day Event (Edinburgh College of Art – organiser. )
A three day conference with guest speakers, discussions and events examining the role of art in society.Participation Art Event (Edinburgh College of Art – initiator and curator.)
Invited artists including David Medalla and John Dugger presented participation art works at the college.1974
Scottish Young Contemporaries (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, curator)Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile (Artists for Democracy, Royal College of Art, London. Video recording of the festival).
1975
Femmes Films Festival (FNAC, Paris – “Hands”, collaborative video)The Video Show (Serpentine Gallery, London. Edited compilation of video recordings made at the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile. Also screening/live performance of “Hands”)
People of the World Learn from Indochina – Vietnam Festival (Artists for Democracy, Whitfield Street, London)
Performance Art Week (with with Limited Dance Company, Serpentine Gallery, London)
1999
Group show, Gasworks (London)Bankside Browser (Tate Modern)
2004
“Facing Medusa”, screening, London Biennale (The Foundry, London)2005
“Facing Medusa”, screening, Video Game (Video festival, Bari, Italy)“Facing Medusa”, screening, Birth, Life, Death, Whatever (Video festival, London)
2006
In Arcadia (Installation, Orleans House, London Biennale)2008
Cannakale Biennale (“Facing Medusa”, screening, Cannakale, Turkey)2009
The Golden City (Video installation, Akbank Gallery, Istanbul)2012
Karaoke Iliad (performance event, Village Green Festival, Metal, Southend)2013
The Towers of Ilium (film, premiere, Thameside Theatre, Grays, Thurrock)The Towers of Ilium (screening, film festival, Bluecoat Gallery Colchester)
2014
Artists for Democracy: The Archive of Cecilia Vicuna (Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile – screening of edited compilation of digitised video recordings made at the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974. )The Towers of Ilium (screening and discussion, Essex Book Festival)
The Towers of Ilium (screening and discussion, Women and War symposium, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge)
2016
The Towers of Ilium (screening, Shorelines Festival, Tilbury)2019
Strangelove Time Based Media Festival Folkestone (screening of “Hands”)
Curtains for Mrs Thatcher (screening of tapes of Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile)
A Year in Art 1973 (Tate Modern – screening of edited compilation of digitised video recordings made at the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974.)2020
Chile 1973 seminar (Tate Modern – presentation about Artists for Democracy and the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London 1974, and panel discussion)2021
Acts of Defiance: Exploring Protest Art (presentation about the Participation Art Event at Edinburgh College of Art, 1973. Webinar, Scottish Society of Art Historians. )2023
System Shifts: Politics of Artistic Form in Post-Imperial Britain. (Seminar, Manchester University, Whitworth Art Gallery)
Precarious Solidarities: Artists for Democracy (1974-77) (On-line symposium, Afterall, Central St Martins, London)
Artists for Democracy (Exhibition, England & Co at The Horse Hospital, London)
Two podcasts recorded by Art 360. (The first explores the making of the film “The Towers of Ilium” and the second discusses Artists for Democracy.)
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Videography:
1974
Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974.
Video recordings of the festival, organised by Artists for Democracy at the Royal College of Art, London, October, 1974.1975
Hands
Performative video made in collaboration with Roberta Hunter Henderson, Tina Keane, Sonia Knox and Sylvia Stevens
Commissioned by the Femmes FIlms festival, ParisThe Video Show
Serpentine Gallery
Screening of “Hands” with live performance
Screening of edited compilation of video recordings of the Arts Festival for
Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974.2004
Facing Medusa – video installation2006
Migration and Exile – video installation2009
The Golden City – video installation2013
The Towers of Ilium – single screen digital video film2014
Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974.
Original tapes digitised and re-edited for inclusion in “The Archive of Cecilia Vicuna” exhibition at the Museum of Memory and Reconciliation, Santiago, Chile2018
The Language of Eden: Part 1 – A Memory
Single screen digital video film2020
The Language of Eden: Part 2 – A Future
Single screen digital video film -
Artist works:
