EDINBURGH.- Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) opens tomorrow (31 July) with an exciting month-long calendar of more than 40 exhibitions, special events, performances and tours across 30 of the city’s museums, galleries and institutions, as well as artist-run, temporary and pop-up spaces. In its 11th year, the festival brings together over 100 leading and emerging Scottish and international artists and features the return of its annual, city-wide commissions programme, including a major presentation by leading Indian artist Nalini Malani as part of 14-18 NOW’s LIGHTS OUT and WWI Centenary Art Commissions. As part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, and during the year of Homecoming Scotland, the 2014 programme also sees the presentation of a major international group exhibition Where do I end and you begin programmed by Edinburgh Art Festival in collaboration with City Art Centre.

Edinburgh Art Festival also features a daily programme of events for all ages, featuring one-off artist performances, live musical events, film screenings and festival tours, as well as talks by some of the world’s leading artists and curators.

Sorcha Carey, Director of Edinburgh Art Festival, said: “As the only major annual festival dedicated to the visual arts within the UK, Edinburgh Art Festival occupies a uniquely important place in the cultural calendar. Our 2014 programme continues to provide audiences with an unrivalled opportunity to immerse themselves in the very best historic and contemporary art, with an extraordinarily rich series of solo and group presentations of Scottish contemporary artists alongside exhibitions of leading international artists, many showing in the UK for the very first time.”

Programme highlights:

• The first solo exhibition in Scotland by leading contemporary artist Isa Genzken and major solo presentations by Susan Hiller, Jim Lambie, Katie Paterson and John Byrne, together with a new commission by Tris Vonna-Michell

• An international exhibition programmed by Edinburgh Art Festival, Where do I end and you begin, bringing together 5 curators and 20 artists from across the Commonwealth, including work by leading Indian artists Amar Kanwar and Shilpa Gupta installed in the historic Old Royal High School on Calton Hill

• A series of new commissions situated in unique locations throughout the city, including Craig Coulthard’s video installation at at Trinity Apse, a gothic kirk located off the historic Royal Mile; a sound installation by Yann Seznec housed in an abandoned Police Box along Easter Road; two new public sculptures by Jacqueline Donachie in Princes Street Gardens; a significant outdoor presentation of Nalini Malani’s haunting video installation ‘In Search of Vanished Blood’ projected on to the exterior walls of the Scottish National Gallery; and compelling new work by the best emerging contemporary Scottish artists in a series of co-commissions at the University of Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery

• In-depth art historical surveys including an exhibition overview of American Impressionism featuring works by Degas, Monet, Cassatt, Sargent and Whistler; the presentation of drawn and painted work by renowned art critic and artist John Ruskin; the only UK showing of Chinese treasures from Ming: The Golden Empire; as well as Generation: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, a multi-venue survey across all the National Galleries of Scotland celebrating the richness and diversity of the past 25 years of Scottish contemporary art

• Nearly 200 events at over 80 venues across Edinburgh, including talks by some of the world's leading artists and curators; a series of panel discussions to run alongside EAF’s major international exhibition Where do I end and you begin; the return of EAF Explorers, a special activity trail for families, and EAF's popular Art Late series; as well as film screenings, live performances and musical events. Please visit Edinburgh Art Festival's website to book a place at any event: www.edinburghartfestival.com