Led up the garden path

JARDINS PUBLICS ***

East Princes Street Gardens and other venues, until September 2

I MUST admit to having awaited this year's Festival with unusually keen anticipation. Not on account of Warhol, Long or any major show, but because for the first time in decades, the International Festival, under its new director Jonathan Mills, was to stage a curated art exhibition. With the estimable Katrina Brown in charge, fresh from years of success at DCA, Jardins Publics looked set to raise the game, and so I saved this review for last. I had deliberately not gone to the preview. Often it is better for a critic to view an exhibition through the eyes of Joe Public, and in this case it was absolutely necessary - for it enables me to ask the question: how are we meant to find it?

To judge from the Art Festival brochure, the pivotal part of Brown's public art show is at the Book Festival gardens. But ask any member of the otherwise capable staff there and you will be met with clueless stares. There is, they tell me, a sculpture nearby, and on further inspection I find Fanny Lam Christie's interesting but obvious bronze tree trunk, albeit fenced off by tape and warnings not to touch. As for Alice Betts' installation, it is simply not in evidence and there is absolutely no signage. So far, so bad. On closer inspection of the Art Festival brochure I notice that on the map we are directed to several further installations, although these are not mentioned in the text.

Taking the cue, I walk to Princes Street Gardens and find the large and colourful expanses of Michael Lin's walkways built around a tree. Again, though, there is no signage and no explanation of what it might signify. There is, though, a hut. No, disappointingly it does not appear to be part of the work, but contains an official who gives me a small folded card. This is the key to Jardins Publics. But the problem is, to get the card I first had to find an exhibit. Why was it not available at the Book Festival?

Using my newly acquired guide I now make my way to what looks to be the most tempting of the works. Richard Wright has decorated the empty space of a New Town flat, echoing the motif of the cornice - itself drawn from nature - in a similarly organic motif across the walls and ceilings, directing the eye out on to the garden and thus re-addressing the indelible marriage of outside and inside which informs not only this gem of Scottish domestic design but the tradition of the Enlightenment as carried through three centuries of life and letters. For his second piece, along the Water of Leith, Wright has taken the forgotten stone shell of St George's Well and re-glazed a tiny window. Peering into this, one looks through his geometric, etched designs in the flawed glass onto the foliage and water of the river. Cleverly, Wright has reclaimed the tumbledown as a summer house, recalling the original purpose of so many similar buildings during the Romantic era. This is as good as Jardins Publics gets and it is, in my opinion, a small success. Ironically, too, it has achieved what was one of the principal original aims of the independent Art Festival, creating meaningful interventions in some of Edinburgh's historic spaces and a sense that the city is truly filled with art. But none of that excuses the parlous lack of interpretive material or signage.

That said, these are early days and we can always learn from mistakes. But I do think that, on the whole, the International Festival and the Art Festival need to integrate more closely to ensure this sort of administrative fiasco is not repeated next year.

Thankfully there is no problem in finding several exhibitions this year which remind us that art is not all about the found object or space. John Bellany is the subject of an important retrospective at the Open Eye Gallery. Thankfully his touch is as strong as ever, and perhaps this year might see him receive the honour he most surely deserves.

Further down Dundas Street, the Scottish Gallery features new work from the hand of that indefatigable septuagenarian John Houston. As perhaps the most successful contemporary painter in our colourist tradition, Houston takes his cue as always from MacTaggart to transform Scotland's land and seascapes into hugely evocative essays in light. The land is also the theme of a similarly spirited show of paintings by Jock McFadyen. But this is Scotland seen through a glass, darkly - a land in which familiar views are painted with a palette whose muted tones reflect the painter's poetic musings on how society shapes nature. And if you want to travel further back in time and discover what shaped the work of all three painters you only have to visit Bourne Fine Art's modest gem of a show devoted to Scottish artists abroad. There is enough here, in salient works by Melville, Mackie, DY Cameron, Fergusson and others for a short treatise on the direct impact of international art on our home-grown masters.

Which brings me, inevitably, to Ricky Demarco, who this year, at last admitted into the bosom of the National Galleries, provides a telling backdrop for any ongoing Festival initiatives. The potentially befuddling slice of his huge archive currently on view at the Portrait Gallery is testimony to his achievement. For if anything can be said to sum up the true sprit of what the Festival stands for it is surely Demarco. According to one senior gallery source, he's virtually sleeping there and, if you're lucky, you'll encounter the great man himself and get a first-hand account of the past 50 years. If you do, be prepared to write off the best part of an hour. You can be sure it'll be worth it. For, with your head resounding to the names of Beuys, Neagu, Hamilton Finlay and the rest, you will emerge with a clearer idea of what an international art festival really means and what might be achieved by the current incumbents with just a little more clarity of vision. v

John Bellany, Open Eye, until September 5; John Houston, Scottish Gallery, until September 5; Jock McFadyen, Grey Gallery, until September 2; Scottish Artists Abroad, Bourne Fine Art, until September 2; Demarco's Festival, SNPG, until September 2