29 March 2018
We’re back at the Gallery of Modern Art to discuss the third instalment of NOW, a series of exhibitions which highlight the range of quality of work being made by artists associated with Scotland and across the globe.
At the heart of the exhibition is five rooms dedicated to British artist Jenny Saville. She is best known for her monumental paintings of the naked female body which she first developed for her graduation exhibition at Glasgow School of Art in 1992. It was during this time that she came to the attention of Charles Saatchi who commissioned Saville to create 15 new works which were later displayed at the Saatchi Gallery.
On show will be paintings and drawings spanning her 25-year career including a new acquisition for the collection – Study for Branded 1992. More recently, Saville has been working with charcoal and pastel in which she layers imagery to suggest movement. She draws from a range of sources including art of the past, graffiti, children’s drawings and ancient myths.
We will be concentrating on Jenny’s work for this session and will be joined by artist Karen Strang, who also studied at Glasgow School of Art, to discuss the work.
28 February 2013 at 6pm
In our February 2013 Spin event, we will be visiting the New Work Scotland Programme: Conor Kelly and Calvin Laing exhibition at the Collective Gallery. Kate Gray, Director of the Collective Gallery, will join us in discussing the two artists selected for the exhibition, the New Work Scotland programme and the plans for the gallery’s move to Calton Hill in later this year.
New Work Scotland is a Collective initiative recognised as giving artists based in Scotland their first significant visual art project or commission. Through an annual open application, NWSP identifies and supports some of the most promising new practitioners working in the visual arts in Scotland, providing them with the opportunity to make new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public.
Conor Kelly graduated in 2008 from the MFA course at Glasgow School of Art and for this exhibition he has produced new series of paintings and sculptures. As part of his exhibition, Kelly will also present a ‘ready-made’ sculpture; La Tour de Travail (The Tower of Labour), named after Rodin’s ornate maquette for a monumental folly to labour.
Calvin Laing graduated with BA (Hons) in sculpture from Edinburgh College of Art in 2011. He works predominantly in video and sculpture with Laing himself, present in it. In his work Calvin is represented as the protagonist, playing an exaggerated and extended, alter-ego version of himself. He carries out performances in the public realm and the interaction with the public, often happening off camera, is an important part of the process, allowing the work to be manipulated and driven by people’s interjections.
19 October 2011 at 6.30pm
Spin: Glasgow visit the artist-run gallery and studios, the duchy. Master Slice is a group show of new work by three Glasgow-based artists whose work examines the linguistic nature of an artworks presentation.
Neil Clements‘ work in this exhibition explores how an artwork could be argued to function as a barrier between artist and audience, occluding meaning as much as communicating it. Glasgow School of Art recent graduate Sam Derounian‘s work is founded upon collaged sculptural forms and compositions using screenprinting, painting, and drawing processes. George Ziffo‘s paintings investigate and challenge the boundaries between portraiture and abstraction.
Founded in June of 2009, the duchy is a new non-profit, artist-run gallery and studio space located in two adjoining shop-fronts on Duke Street, Glasgow. Their intention is to support emerging and early career artists committed to their practice, providing space to create and show work.
19 January 2011 at 6.30pm
A visit the latest exhibition at The Glasgow School of Art in the schools Mackintosh Museum. The title of the exhibition is Living Today and features the work of Matei Bejenaru, Ross Birrell, Francis Cape, Angela Ferreira, Jens Haaning, David Harding and Eva Merz.
This group exhibition presents artists whose work explores aspects of the society they live in -politics, culture, economy, living conditions and social structures. Included are copies of information from the Orwell Archive, University College of London, relating to George Orwell’s 1937 publication, The Road To Wigan Pier which, commissioned by Victor Gollancz and published by the Left Book Club, documented poverty in the north east of England before the Second World War.
Matei Bejenaru (Romania) makes work that analyses the way in which globalization affects post-communist countries’ labour forces. Past works include a Travelling Guide for Romanian illegal workers. The focus of Francis Cape’s (USA) artwork took a dramatic shift following a visit to New Orleans in 2005, just two months after Hurricane Katrina. After witnessing the destruction of lives, buildings, and an entire citys infrastructure, the artist turned to a combination of photography and construction, and began exploring themes of rescue and recovery efforts, social neglect, and design for living. Angela Ferreira (Portugal), born in Mozambique and living between both South Africa and Portugal, explores ideological and economic issues between cultures. Jens Haaning (Denmark) looks at those living in society’s margins, in particular refugees.
As part of the exhibition, there will be a publication by Eva Merz, a Danish artist living in Glasgow, You, Me, Them & Us, by Eva Merz. This book contains series of interviews offering different perspectives, opinions and first-hand experiences of the Women’s Prison System in Scotland. Ross Birrell and David Harding made a trip to Wigan in response to this exhibition, to read from The Road to Wigan Pier.
15 December 2010 at 6.30pm
Acclaimed emerging artist Shelly Nadashi will personally screen her short films, show slides and talk to us about her emerging practice.
Nadashi is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Glasgow, having graduated from The School for Visual Theatre in Jerusalem and from the MFA programme at the Glasgow School of Art. Her practice encompasses a variety of media such as performance, video, puppetry, text, sound and object-making.
Nadashi’s work is simultaneously autobiographical and surreal, presenting narratives that examine the way in which personal situations are constructed from broader social contexts. This strategy emotionally engages and entertains the audience whilst concurrently creating a space for them to reflect on the wider themes inherent in these narratives, such as voyeurism, social pressure to conform and the effect of our immediate environment on our mental state. A sophisticated comic exaggeration in both her speech and gesture accentuate the pathos of her situation but also contradicts the melodrama by undercutting the seriousness of whats at stake.
Nadashi has sustained interest in working with inanimate objects. This performative mechanism mimics the relationship between the puppet and puppeteer, setting up a symbolic, fetishistic (mystical and sexual) rapport with these objects and attributing to them particular powers. This technique allows a forensic examination of lifes intimate moments that is incisive but dreamlike. The objects exist as documents of a performance but are also imbued with a votive quality independent of the text.
Nadashi has exhibited and performed internationally, participated in numerous group exhibitions, and produced an award-winning film. She is currently working towards two solo exhibitions.
23 June 2010 at 6.30pm
Acclaimed Scottish artist Carla Scott Fullerton has invited Spin members to visit her studio, giving us a rare opportunity to discuss and gain insight into her practice. As well as visiting Fullerton’s studio, we will also have an opportunity to look around the various other artists studios and facilities contained within the Glasgow Sculpture Studios building.
Carla Scott Fullerton’s practice is primarily sculptural, with additional elements such as drawing and printmaking. The materials she uses are sourced from the field of construction – cement, plywood, rebar, graph paper, all elements that make up the foundations of architectural forms.
Fullerton is interested in the moment at which these materials lose their usual restrictions, for example, through the irregular and unpredictable nature of pouring cement. She is interested in how materials speak about the status and economies of a building, its usage, contents and age and in the combined usage of old and new materials.
Fullerton graduated from the MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 2008. She was awarded the prestigious Glasgow Sculpture Studios Fellowship Award in 2008-09.The award is presented to the artist who demonstrates a commitment to maintaining a studio based arts practice and to contemporary sculptural practices. Recent solo presentations of Fullerton’s work include Lines have edges, tentilten, Glasgow and Open Space, Art Cologne 2010. Lines & Pours, Chert Gallery Berlin, breadthless lines, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Spacioux, Lambretto Art Project, Milan all 2009 and You cant hide your love forever, Tulips & Roses, Vilnius. Fullerton is represented by Chert Gallery, Berlin.
29 October 2009 at 6pm
An Entangled Bank is the partner exhibition to Darwin’s Edinburgh. It will present a series of diverse but interrelated works by five contemporary artists, who have drawn inspiration from one of Darwin’s most famous visual metaphors the term ‘an entangled bank’ which appears in On the Origin of Species, and encapsulates both Darwin’s vivid literary style as well as the density, difference and dependence he observed in the natural world.
The exhibition will include work by Christine Borland, Ilana Halperin, Brian Hewitt, Kenny Hunter and Ben Rivers who all have national and international reputations and work in various media including film, photography, digital projection, sculpture, installation and film.
Joining us to discuss his work, will be Glasgow-based artist Kenny Hunter. Kenny was the very first artist invited to join Spin in discussions back in 2003, so it will be a pleasure to have him with us again.
Kenny Hunter was born in Edinburgh in 1962 and studied Fine Art and Sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art during the mid 80s. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad. He has also a number of high profile, commissions for Scotland including Cherub/Skull for the Tron Theatre, and Citizen Firefighter outside Glasgows Central Station.
This will be an opportunity for us to discuss how Darwin’s ideas about evolution have influenced the artists involved and how their work incorporates and presents these.
18 March 2009 at 6.30pm
This months Spin: Glasgow travels to Stirling to see a solo exhibition of work by Graham Fagen.
Born in Glasgow in 1966, Graham Fagen lives and works in Scotland. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and the Kent Institute of Art and Design. Fagen’s work focuses on the means of communication within a culture, and how it is compromised or transformed when taken out of context. Many of his projects have explored the notion of cultural identity and meaning. In 2007, Fagen was commissioned by Glasgow Museums to present downpresser, a major solo exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) for the commemoration of the abolition of slavery. He gained great critical acclaim for Killing Time, his collaborative project with Graham Eatough of Suspect Culture at DCA, Dundee. Fagen has previously exhibited at London’s Imperial War Museum, including Theatre (2000), the ICA and V&A as well as extensively throughhout the world.
somebodyelse is a solo exhibition of portraits by Fagen including a newly commissioned work. The portraits in somebodyelse combine real and imagined figures in order to explore Scotland’s contemporary and historic culture. Works from previous photographic series by Fagen are also on show.
26 February 2009 at 6.15pm
This month we will be visiting The Fruitmarket Gallery to see a solo exhibition of work by Scottish artist Claire Barclay, known for work which takes the form of highly crafted sculptural objects brought together into precisely plotted relationships. Featuring newly commissioned work shown in the context of objects made over the course of her career, the exhibition offers an opportunity to trace the development of the artist’s singular sculptural language.
Barclay encourages us to engage with her work on a profoundly instinctual level. We think we recognise familiar objects, like keys, pots or combs, but all have been shaped in such a way as to prevent any practical use. Tables defy gravity to stand on three legs, while chairs have neither a seat nor a back. Unable to attribute meaning through function, we are led instead on an associative journey triggered by memory and the imagination that draws on the sensory and the subconscious as well as the demands of reason.
Biography: Claire Barclay was born in 1968 in Paisley and currently lives and works in Glasgow. She graduated from the Environmental Art and Sculpture Course at Glasgow School of Art in 1990 and completed an MFA in Glasgow in 1993. In 2003, she represented Scotland at the Venice Bienniale alongside Simon Starling and Jim Lambie. She is represented by doggerfisher, Edinburgh.
18 February 2009 at 6.30pm
Join our SPIN host Alhena Katsof in a special opportunity to visit Toby Paterson’s studio.
Toby Paterson was born in Glasgow in 1974. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating from the former in 1995. In Glasgow, he is represented by The Modern Institute and in London, by Sutton Lane. Paterson won the 2002 Becks Futures Prize and received a Creative Scotland Award in 2006.
Recent projects include solo shows in The Hague and London, group exhibitions in San Francisco, Belgrade, Madrid and Middlesborough, and the commission of permanent works at Tramway in Glasgow, and at BBC Scotland’s new headquarters and on the campus of Warwick University. He is also developing work for the seven stations that constitute the Docklands Light Railways planned Stratford International Extension. Paterson’s interest in cities and their architecture is manifested throughout his work in the form of painting, sculpture and photography. He currently lives and works in Glasgow.
