Time for the art festival to add a signature to its work

SO FAR most of the public build-up to the Edinburgh Art Festival has concerned Tracey Emin's retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Or to be more precise it has been about Tracey's bottom (a print of the artist painting in her bikini because, as we all know, that's what women artists do when they're not doing the housework in their knickers) and Tracey's party (you're not invited but Elton and David are).

With the Festival's full programme just published and, I understand, an announcement about Scottish Government "expo" funding on its way this week, it's time to check for substance beneath the surface style.

Thankfully it's there… in places. A chance to see original pop artist Richard Hamilton's powerful Protest Pictures again has long been wishful thinking on the part of curators and fans. Inverleith House has pulled it off. There's also an installation in an abandoned Edinburgh warehouse by Richard Wilson, whose classic sump oil sculpture 20:50 was one of the best things that Charles Saatchi ever got his mitts on. At the Fruitmarket Gallery there's a chance to see Janet Cardiff and George Bures' elegant and chilling work.

The National Galleries are largely playing the populist card. Emin is one thing but yet another impressionist-themed show at the RSA (after Monet and Gauguin) may just be a Frenchman too far. If you haven't seen it yet, however, the awesome photographic show, Foto, at the Dean Gallery is a revelation.

There is a smattering of outdoor sculpture but from emerging artists, such as Ric Warren and Ettie Spencer, so it's on the level of ambitious graduate-standard work rather than international. Edinburgh College of Art, once a centre of outstanding festival excellence, has taken the odd decision to show American artist Sandy Wurmfeld's colour panorama even though it was programmed at the Talbot Rice Gallery in 2004.

The biggest risk is in the private sector where the Ingleby Gallery has taken a quantum leap by moving out of its domestic setting into the biggest such commercial space outside London, nestling behind Waverley Station. For the gallery-going public the question will be whether the multi-layered programming can meet the ambition of the building. The first show features the blue chip but "best-kept secret" works by American artist Kay Rosen.

First mooted by its founders as a full-on new festival, EAF has instead emerged over its five-year history as a steadily growing coalition of independent partners, working to add value to their own festival exhibitions by sharing audiences and holding joint activities such as talks and tours and the evening opening event Art Late. Art people from elsewhere are amazed that, come the opening weekend, public and private, collective and commercial galleries can get it together and rub along well enough to throw a citywide party.

But what EAF has struggled so far to do is to establish, among its chatter of voices, its own unique tone. Last year the happy coincidence of artists with shared interests such as David Batchelor, Rachel Whiteread, Alex Hartley and Nathan Coley all showing provided a sense of common purpose and equilibrium, but this year a programme that festival director Joanne Brown describes as "more risk-taking" looks a bit more patchy.

There doesn't appear to be an appetite from its constituency partners for a full-on commissioning and curating festival; they want to do what they do anyway but better. Funds shouldn't be diverted from core gallery programming. But it's time the EAF commissioned a public-facing work, as a talking point and to add a bit of pizzazz.

With the longstanding visual arts gap in the official Edinburgh Festival programme filled by Jonathan Mills last year only for art to disappear again this time round there is surely scope for EAF to raise its profile and provide audiences with a public flavour of what goes on behind art gallery doors.

You keep your eye on Tracey if you like. This week I'll mostly be watching Linda Fabiani.

Edinburgh Art Festival runs from July 31 until August 31 www.edinburghartfestival.org