Time after time

Christiane Baumgartner's new show Solaris combines traditional craftmanship with contemporary imagery. Hand printed by the artist, some of these impeccable woodcuts are on a virtuoso scale. The contrast between the labour-intensive, line by line chiselling of the plywood plate and almost casual imagery drawn from video brings together two very different perceptions of time and adds exciting nuance to the idea of "stills". Until 21 February 2009 at Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF

(Not so) public art

It’s good to see the local Exeter press devoting so many column inches to contemporary art. The Heavitree News, for instance, is apoplectic over the siting of a shiny new public sculpture by Michael Fairfax on Fore Street. It’s going to cause a nasty accident, apparently, when motorists become so fascinated by the words written on it that they’ll clean forget to look where they’re going. We can but hope it will be that interesting.

Whatever the merits of the work itself, there seems to have been an unhelpful lack of consultation with local people. And, given the not-so-trifling budget of £70,000 (or £172,000, depending on who you ask), a missed opportunity for inclusive, innovative public art commissioning. You can’t blame Heavitree residents for going a bit Daily Mail.

Welcome to our stranglehold

If you're thinking of starting, joining or otherwise getting intimate with an artist-led initiative, Gordon Dalton has a few words of warning. www.aliasarts.org/GordonDalton.htm