Auld Alliances, Cuban Revolution and the Scottish Psyche - This Week in Scottish Art

Article by Adam Benmakhlouf | 01 Oct 2014

For those who managed to book a ticket in time for the latest Arika, their bank holiday weekend was late night vogueing in Stereo as well as a full programme of performances, screenings, discussions and workshops in Tramway. For everyone else, there were promises of better organisation in the future. In that vein, here are some art events taking place around Scotland this week, for your consideration. Plan ahead!

Still in Tramway, another GENERATION headliner show concludes as Cathy Wilkes’ exhibition comes into its final week - closing on Sunday 5 Oct. Lyrically, and with their limited means, Wilkes’ complex tableaus make the most of the spacious Tramway 2. With self-conscious figures left bereft and at a distance from one another and dressed in down-at-heel cloths, there’s a a deprived domesticity: the perils of poverty.

GENERATION continues to close up its summer run in Paisley where there is a show that centres itself on the earlier 1989 exhibition, "Information" (until 5 Oct). In the first "Information", there were a number of works by a chunk of the “Scotia Nostra”, including Claire Barclay, Martin Boyce, Douglas Gordon and Ross Sinclair. This time around there’s some documentation of what happened in the same space in 1989, as well as new work by some Glasgow MLitt students who have used the theme as their starting point.

Sara Barker’s GENERATION show in the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art is also into the final week of its run - closing on 5 October. In the U-shaped gallery two, there’s some interesting work here. Barker’s sculptures are formed of spindly, skinny rods of metal manipulated into forms that could be the three dimensional renderings of Kandinsky’s abstracted line records of the gestures of German Expressionist dance. As they move in and out of painted material, they are carefully balanced and spare.

One of two reasons to head to the Reid Building of the Glasgow School of Art can be found in the huge corridor space outside the Reid Gallery. There is an exhibition of 'Posters of the Cuban Revolution'. Created by the Organisaiton in Solidarity with the People of Africa, Nixon twice appears with fangs, and also flying over Cambodia carried by fighter jets and holding a swastika. Please go, if only to spot the funkiest poster of Lenin you'll ever see. This is a early warning; it’ll be on until 31 October.

The Reid Gallery moves from Cuba to Kinning Park, as Glasgow School of Art tutor Richard Walker will exhibit his latest “Studio Paintings” through October, opening with a preview this Friday. Made in his top-floor studio in the Kinning Park complex, he worked from a complex configuration of mirrors and projectors.

There’s also life outside Glasgow at Smart Gallery in Aberdeen, in the topical exhibition 'A 2 Z of Love and Hate in Scotland' by Doug Cocker and Michael Agnew, finishing 19 October. The “A 2 Z” is an exhibition to accompany the book by Cocker and Agnew, who have printed a limited edition of 1000 of this publication. In an essay of collages, the artists consider the unique Scottish psyche, its history and what is to come. Though set up in advance of the referendum, the issues remain undinted in their relevance by the recent vote.

It’s safe to assume there will be some excellent wine at the private view of the Auld Alliance Contemporary Exhibitions in the French Institute in Edinburgh on Friday. Also taking place in EDS Gallery, the Auld Alliance shows brings together a selection of French and Scottish artists, including Rachel Maclean, Jacob Kerray and Samantha Boyes. Both exhibitions will be on throughout October.

Please email details of your art events to adam@theskinny.co.uk