Glasgow research trip report
By ESA's Head of Programme, Judit Bodor
Following a year developing relationship through events and meetings between East Street Arts (Leeds) Art Bloc (York) and Contents May Vary (Manchester), thirteen of us decided to explore new territories together and go on a research trip to Glasgow during the last weekend of Glasgow International Festival (16 April – 3 May 2010). The idea was simple: be together for a couple of days to get to know each other more outside of our usual work/living context, see some art and hopefully meet other artists who we might want to collaborate in the future. During the three-day ride on our beloved minibus we tried to explore the Glasgow art scene in depth!
And here is what we found:
We met festival producer, Jean Cameron who was a fantastic host looking after the group providing us with goodie bags and a presentation about the history of the Festival and its position within the Scottish contemporary art scene. The festival’s current director, Katrina Brown, set the theme as ‘Past, Present and Future’. Jean, who we contacted through ESA's own Glaswegian studio holder Roddy Hunter, also joined us for couple of drinks and dinners and gave good ideas of where to go and what to see! It is always good to have some friends in a city you want to explore!
After some careful research into GI’s programme we developed a very tight schedule to see as much as we can, including some of Glasgow’s fine bars, such as the Scotia and a fine game between Celtic and Motherwell! But enough about football … On our first night we went to Streetland a festival of community and the street on Westmoreland Street, Govanhill, or as someone on their blog described “A heady weekend of music, art, poetry, gardening, hula hooping and general bonhomie...”. There we first met artists such as Janie Nicoll and Stephen Hurrel who then – together with Jean - joined us on a funny bus ride trying to find a closing party by Dundee-based artist collective Ganghut in the Poloc Cricket Club which was not easy! After getting lost in Pollok Country Park in the dark and meeting some nice people from the bowling club who had no idea about the cricket club (!), we finally got there and the party rocked! Some of us even bought ‘I Long for Lorne’ T shirts designed by Ganghut (lorne is a type of sausage in Scotland), listened to Gangband - Ganghut’s musical leg - and ate lots of weird food before going ‘home’, already exhausted …
The next day Janie took us on a tour around The Briggait and WASPS Studios latest developments before we all split into groups and went in different directions. Some of us choose the city centre to see exhibitions in venues such as GoMA and the CCA others headed towards the West End to see ‘HALLelujah 2’, a group exhibition in Janie’s flat and Joseph Beuys An ARTIST ROOMS exhibition in the Hunterian Art Gallery . Although the weather was a bit chilly, it was May Day and so some of us decided to celebrate it by joining a “A May Day Manifesto Meander Doon The Watter...” led by Scottish actor Tam Dean Burn. As part of Radius a programme of art events on the fringe of Glasgow International, Tam talked about “some of the radical aspects of Glasgow along the banks of it's main river, the Clyde, from Chartism through Abolitionism to the Spanish Civil War, with a few songs thrown in at the end including a swing version of 'We Don't Need This Fascist Thang'. The Clyde is Red and Black.” This video is worth a look! After long days of walking around we spent our evenings at the highly recommended Stereo Café Bar eating fine and affordable vegan food after which we had some nice drink and a laugh at the Le Drapeau Noir, a temporary artist café during the festival referencing avant-garde mythology, Da Da, café culture, anarchic history and underground music.
On the last day we decided to go and see exhibitions outside the city centre. Starting at the West End we spent an hour at the Kelvingrove Museum, a must see model for how to curate and manage civic art galleries in the 21st century. The most popular free to enter venue in Scotland it holds an impressive civic art collection of about 8000 objects all displayed in a surreal manner mixing natural history collection with popular and high arts. It feels like a real people’s place providing a fantastic mixture of art exhibition/community activities/café and concert place. We then headed towards Glasgow Sculpture Studios to see Jimmie Durham’s first solo exhibition of new work in Scotland, 'Universal Miniature Golf (The Promised Land)', created exclusively for the Festival. As you can read on the website: “Universal Miniature Golf (The Promised Land) is the outcome of a three-month Production Residency, where Durham worked alongside over fifty studio holders and members; offering a rare opportunity for dialogue and cultural exchange between Durham and a generation of artists whose practices may have been influenced by his own.” It was very good to see that in Glasgow studio developments are at the same time important and accepted programming organisations presenting seminal artists in studio/exhibition environment.
In the wasteland behind the studios, artist collective Lowsalt developed a collective intervention into the forgotten landscape with support from the Festival. Vestiges Park was an outdoor group exhibition by sixteen artists responding to Lowsalt’s curatorial concept inspired by the anonymous publication of ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’ written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers in 1844. The exhibition was accompanied by open-air film screenings and a family safari day enjoyed by many who, despite the rain went to see what the collective effort of these artists resulted. The park is well worth praise and hopefully stays there is some form or another! We then went to see an exhibition by the FINN collective in the abandoned Glue Factory on Maryhill, after which we just had time to finish our day in the Tramway Tramway’s spaces were transformed by large scale installations and environments. Douglas Gordon’s '24 Hour Psycho Back and Forward and To and Fro' revisited the artists' 1993 film work, 24 Hour Psycho showing the film back and forward accompanied by a second work ‘Looking down with his black, black ee’, a film showing ravens on three monitors. In Tramway 2, Swiss artist, Cristoph Buchel’s environment 'Last Man Out Turn Off Lights', a "fictitious yet highly believable environment constructed inside a series of shipping containers" was a truly overwhelming experience.
After Tramway closed we all headed back to the centre for a pint and a chat. After a very inspirational three days we came home on Monday with lots of thoughts and plans for new collaborations and events in the future.
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