CHRIS FREMANTLE

Eighty Circles through Canada (the last possessions of an Orcadian mountain man), Mike Nelson’ show at Tramway in Glasgow. As an homage and as an exhibition it’s just right – very well judged. The two sides of the wall – one a sequence of slides of landscapes which you realise all feature a ring of stones, the remains of a camping fire; the other the remains of a life, some tubes of paint, some climbing equipment, a photo album, some clothes, old books, tapes of classical music, gridded out detritus.  Melancholy even without the back story.  But also somewhat humourous – you see rings of stones by rivers, in forests, burbling streams and with majestic mountains in the distance, and then you see one with a big rig going past – not all walks are in pristine wilderness.