Isaac Julien - The Long Road to Mazatlan, 2000. 20 minutes, colour/sepia, 16mm to video, triple-screen rear projection. Courtesy The Fruitmarket Gallery.

Exhibition preview: Print the Legend: The Myth of the West at The Fruitmarket Gallery until May 4 2008.

If asked what images come to mind when thinking about westerns, you would probably think of Clint Eastwood style characters with cowboy hats, lassoing enemies whilst charging around on horseback.

Print the Legend at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh explores these and other stereotypes by arguing that the western is a key component in the construction of the myth of the American West, and that this myth is as politically and culturally relevant now as ever.

Taking its name from a comment in the 1962 film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”, the group show has been curated by art historian and editor of Art Monthly, Patricia Bickers.

Douglas Gordon - Five Year Drive-By (The Searchers), 1998. Video projection © Douglas Gordon.

(Above) Courtesy Gagosian Gallery from The Searchers, 1956, dir. John Ford, Warner Bros. Studios ©Warner Home Video.

Included are works by artists such as: Adam Chodzko, Cornelia Parker, Isaac Julien and Gillian Wearing, among others, taking in a selection of northern European sculpture, photography, installation and film.

An example of the works on show include Chodzko’s Better Scenery, which plays on the idea of the American West as a semi-fictional construct, through the photographs of two signs, one in London describing a site in Arizona and the other in Arizona describing a site in London.

Meanwhile Gillian Wearing and Peter Granser examine the modern compulsion to dress up as cowboys, and other artists such as Simon Patterson directly reference particular westerns as the inspiration behind their pieces.

Salla Tykkä - Lasso, 2000. Colour film with sound, 3 mins 48 secs, edition of 7 Courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert Paris, New York.

As part of the exhibition the Gallery will also be showing a series of westerns at The Filmhouse, including: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Magnificent Seven, High Noon, The Searchers and the Academy Award winning Brokeback Mountain.

There will also be an exhibition in The Filmhouse café bar during April, of work created during a workshop by 13-17 year-olds of their notion of the Wild West.

The full list of artists:

Adam Chodzko
Douglas Gordon
Peter Granser
Isaac Julien
Mike Nelson
Cornelia Parker
Simon Patterson
Salla Tykka
Gillian Wearing

This is an exhibition preview. If you’ve been to the show, why not let us know what you think?