Open Frequency

Neil Mulholland profiles the work of Craig Coulthard

Craig Coulthard's work looks and feels like the noticeboard of your local 'local history society' - imbued with facts, connections between obscure persons and events and highly empirical topographical detail. Although imbued with the corrective revisionism of people's history, such local histories tend to create an 'objective' manageable past (aping the form of pre-war academic histories). In contrast, Coulthard embraces the popular and oral forms of culture that do not fit the rationalist framework, finding a more appropriate vehicle for the return of the repressed. Coulthard's works are not 'facts' devoid of value; the opposite appears to be the case; they are 'Heartfelt Banner'(s) (2004) overflowing with subjective cultural associations and implied investment. In this, Coulthard's works suggest that History is a form of art; indeed it could be said that it began as such. Historical narratives lay claim, both rhetorically and actually, to a validity of correspondence to the public processes of the real world. Thus the central reference of an historical work is the past about which it speaks, which is in some ways subverted as well as furthered by the mode of expression that the author has chosen. Coulthard reminds us that writing is but one mode in which history might be told and that it is not always the most effective or appropriate means.

Coulthard works in an array of different media including painting, needlework, heraldry, video, fanzines (Babliography), essays (From Leipzig to the Euphrates (Bring Back the Green Brigade) (2005) projections and performance - his most common preoccupations running with cultural phenomena that are articulated in the form of rituals and ceremonies. Sometimes these elements are all combined in his Randan Discotheque (2005-) extravaganzas. Many aspects of his output can be read as an attempt to mythologise his own past within a context that is part factual, part fictitious. In this, the Kingdom of Fife (once a Kingdom in its own right, now a fiercely independent region of Scotland) plays an important supporting role, appearing uncannily in the present. It haunts the present, taking the shape of a phantom or ruin. For 'Memento Mori' (2004), his New Work Scotland show at Edinburgh's Collective Gallery, Coulthard produced a series of felt banners to be placed in the churches of Fife wrecked during the Scottish Reformation or neglected since the diaspora to the industrial Central Belt and the British colonies of the New World. The banners commemorate what has been lost or forgotten, accepting that this is likely to remain so (given that the provisional banners will inevitably be removed). In 'The Source of Eden' (2006), Coulthard and friends kayak down the river Eden in Fife, stopping off every now and then for him to sing songs about the places visited along the way.

Does all of this mean that History then can be said to be comparable to the production of other forms of narrative such as Hollywood films, drama, fairy tales, The Communist manifesto, paintings by Renaissance artists? History is not fiction, yet it often takes the same form as fiction. Babliography Issue 1 (November 2005) is described by Coulthard a 'sporadic factional fanzine dedicated to lesser known, inspirational figures.' The zine resembles the kind of pamphlet you might find in an old church, one produced by the elders to impart something of the history of the congregation. The figures have impacted upon Coulthard's life in ways that are not spelled out. We are left to make of them what we must.

Performances as part of his Randan Discotheque cabaret nights take in an array of references and influences including Johnny Cash, Ghengis Khan's Eldest Son and The Proclaimers. The origins of the events are mythologised in Coulthard's characteristic factitious style:

'An old man takes photos and develops them in his broom cupboard. He has a battered old guitar, the strings rattle when he plays. A small girl is framed by the story of Cinderella. A smaller boy speaks in an English accent, while laughing into a tape recorder. 150 years beforehand, a father sang to his son, while their home burned. Now, in a small Italian village, a broken old lightbox flickers towards life. Nobody enters the nightclub, as Italy are playing Sweden in the World Cup, final score 1-1. As the light comes on, a Fifer stumbles past in search of a campsite. He stops in his tracks and looks to the sky, a yellowing light warms his face ... Randan Discotheque is born.'

Coulthard writes and sings his own songs, making up a storybook that is often overtly melancholic, familiar yet strange: A Croft, Two Brothers & A Plate of Potatoes, None of My Dreams Are Coming True, Cut Down In My Prime, Oh The Heartache. Like much historical practice, Coulthard's songbook is a function of our more general feelings of loss, mourning, and absence. The recent past functions as a model meditating and explaining the present. Don't Let My Body Be Burned he sings. Another work is titled 'If Glory Comes After Death I Can Wait' (2005). What we take of Coulthard's past, like any aspect of history, is a reflection of death irreducible to the present.

Neil Mulholland, August 2007

Artist's biography

Craig Coulthard was born in West Germany in 1981, and grew up in West Germany and the Kingdom of Fife. He completed his BA in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 2002, and went on to complete his MFA there in 2006. In 2003, he helped found The Embassy artist-run gallery in Edinburgh and was a founding member of the artist group Win Together Lose Together Play Together Stay Together.

Recent exhibitions include: This Is For the Girls (It Takes Two to Tango), Porch Gallery, Manchester (solo), 2007; Name In Lights, Ross Bandstand, Princes St Gardens, Edinburgh, 2007; New Acquisitions, Paisley Museum, Paisley, 2007; Black, White & Shades of Grey, Magdalen Chapel, Edinburgh (solo), 2006; Young Athenians, RSA, Edinburgh, 2006; Sort of Like...The Corporal and The Commander, Craig Coulthard & Barry McLaren , Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh, 2006; Braveart 2006, Brick Lane, London, 2006; I Love You Means I Hate You, I Love You Means I Love You, "Yurta", EmergeD, Edinburgh Book Trust Garden (solo), 2006; Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, 126th Annual Exhibition, Invited Artist, RSA, Edinburgh, 2006; Unpacking My Library, Flensburg University Library, Flensburg, Germany, 2006; Pawn Prawn Porn, Edinburgh College of Art, 2006; RSA Student Exhibition 2006, Royal Scottish Academy, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 2006; The Embassy Collection II, Zoo Art Fair, London, 2005; Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005, Cornerhouse Manchester, Spike Island Bristol & Barbican London, 2005-6.

Coulthard continues to work in Edinburgh, and records and performs music under the name Randan Discotheque. Recently he wrote the song 'Rebel's Complaint' for artist Ruth Ewan as part of her East International 06 wining work. In 2007 he will begin a residency in a guest studio at Ateliers Hoherweg e.V., Dusseldorf.

About Neil Mulholland

Dr Neil Mulholland read History of Art and English Literature at the University of Glasgow (MA 1995, PhD 1998). He is currently Director of the Centre for Visual & Cultural Studies at Edinburgh College of Art and a Reader. He supervises doctoral students, teaches on the MFA and leads the MA in Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism.

His work focuses on grass-roots parochialism, narratology, magical realism and metafiction in recent art and criticism. The outcome is manifest in art, criticism, fiction, exhibitions, zines and documentaries. He is author of The Cultural Devolution: British Art in the Late Twentieth Century, Ashgate (2003) and has recently contributed to Rampley, Matthew ed. Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concepts, Contexts, University of Edinburgh Press (2005) and Gooding, Mel. (ed.) The Book of Shrigley, Redstone Press (2005).

He writes regularly for Flash Art, Frieze, Untitled, Modern Painters and Art Review among other magazines. Recent exhibition organisation includes Clueless, OneZero, Edinburgh (2006), Strategic Art Getts, The Embassy, Edinburgh (2005); The Garden, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2005),Campbells Soup, GSA/Glasgow International (2005) and We Go Round and Round in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire, Liverpool Biennial/New York (2004).

Currently hes editing on a reader on postwar Scottish Art, writing a book on the cultural logic of ambient and curating an exhibition for the Blackpool Museum of Contemporary Art.

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