Glasgow 3

It has been over a month since I returned from Glasgow, but I did take a lot of pictures which I am never going to get through it seems! My last day there was spent quite busily checking out shows and galleries from the prestigious Turner Prize Exhibition at The Tramway to a small exhibition of video & sculpture at Celine, an alternative gallery in a private apartment. I wanted to go to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) and managed to fit in a whirlwind look at it before high-tailing it to the Institute of Contemporary Art for a meet-up chat with its dynamic director, Francis McKee.

I had read about the cone on the Wellington statue at the entrance to GoMA -- it has been a beloved eccentricity of the city since the early 1980s to have a traffic cone hat on the figure. Looks like he has a cone in reserve at his feet...

The group exhibition "Devils in the Making" explores the relationship of the gallery collection to Glasgow School of Art. GoMA opened nearly 20 years ago to the criticism that it did not include internationally acclaimed Glaswegian artists and through this show celebrates a situation redressed. All the artists in the show are graduates of GSA.

The three white sculptures, abstract figursea are by Nick Evans and the piece to the left of the white sculptures is by Alex Frost - it is difficult to tell from the picture, but, if my memory serves me, it is a 3D mosaic of a crumpled "Ryvita" wrapper.

I really liked this sculpture by Martin Boyce -- I didn't realise it was neon tubing when I first saw it, just strange ethereal light emanating from the mesh skewed basket. The effect was somewhat unbalancing!

I was immediately attracted to this colourful jumble of half-chairs by Jim Lambie. My husband, James Hayes, was not in Glasgow with me, but this made me especially think of him.

In 1998 James had an exhibition, Tables/Tableaux, at the Basement Gallery in Dundalk. The gallery is divided into two spaces, and one of them contained Family -- an installation of floating, brightly coloured kitchen chairs,  .

Glasgow 2

 I thought I had better post some pictures of a few of the galleries I went to in Glasgow, before I forget entirely! I don't know what happened to the pix I took from the first day (I was having a malfunction when working the camera I guess). After meeting at the edge of Kelvingrove Park, we headed to the Common Guild to see the Thomas Demand exhibition. We had a number of tours of Glasgow School of Art work areas throughout the city and GSA Reid Gallery, and also paid a visit to Transmission gallery for a very large group exhibition (many artists over two floors).

We started the second day (I think) with a visit to Mary Mary, a gallery a short walk away from Central Station, the group meeting point. The gallery is spread over 2 rooms, and a group show "I hope to God you're not as dumb as you make out" was on exhibit. The show consisted of individual pieces by Matthew Brannon, Milano Chow and Alan Reid and a bed installation by the three artists in collaboration.

The duvet cover on the bed was printed with recognisable portraits of contemporary thinkers.

We made our way to the gallery 16 Nicholson St where the group exhibition "That's Genetic" was on. The show included mixed media works by Jennifer Bailey, Lauren Hall, Tessa Lynch and Sarah Rose.

I was delighted to see the paintings of Adrian Morris (d. 2004), an artist of whom I was unfamiliar, at 42 Carlton Place. The gallery itself seemed such a respectful place with lighting from both windows and overhead fluorescents softened by translucent paper screens.

We saw a show at the Modern Institute entitled Electric Magnetic Installation, by Hayley Tomkins. The exhibition was a mix of made objects and found objects.

Tompkins is interested in diary and colour; the setting of wall works on angles is accidental in appearance but I think challenges the way one looks at 2D works.

In the afternoon we headed to the Glasgow Sculpture Studios for a tour around the facilities, and to see the current exhibition by Nicolas Dashayes, "Darling, Gutter". It was a pity that the heat was not turned on in the gallery, as these jesmonite sculptures were directly attached to the heating pipes within the building, so they should have had warmth radiating from them.

Glasgow - 1

 I was in Glasgow a week ago, on the class "getting to know you" trip (I have recently started the MA in Art & Research Collaboration programme through IADT Dún Laoghaire). I had the feet walked off me visiting art shows and artist studios over three days, but it was interesting and exhilarating. Every morning there was quite a fog, which burned off by the afternoon, so the weather was very pleasant and dry. Friday morning (Oct 16) was spent exploring the downtown area and soaking in the city atmosphere before meeting up with the group for our planned gallery visits. I am not sure if this photo gives a good enough indication of how hilly the streets are in the city, but they most certainly are steep!

One of the architectural features I thought very interesting was the street entrance stairs to buildings, almost like flying buttresses over dry moats -- there would be additional steps leading down to the lower level to gain access to the below-footpath-level premises.

Buchanan St. is a busy pedestrian street.

There are many contrasting buildings on Buchanan St. (and elsewhere) and often the ground floor is a high street shop.

I was fascinated by this decorative building. The shop below just happened to be Laura Ashley.

Though the windows of this build seem plain in comparison to the building above, I liked the top story decoration and the semi circular window and its accompanying arch work.

I didn't look to see what denomination this church represented, just focused on the decoration.

This clock tower is also part of the church.

 There was a lot of carved stone decoration on buildings. This may have been at the entrance to a sports shop.

I think this man may have been on the other side of the sports shop entrance.