Inspiral Carpets: Elizabeth Price at the Hunterian Art Gallery

UNDERFOOT, Elizabeth Price's first solo show in Scotland, centres on a complex but tightly structured video installation of the same name, and SAD CARREL, a hand-tufted rug produced by the artist in collaboration with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. The crisp, technicolour visuals of the carpets in the video foreground the metallic gold and silver spiralled embellishments of the textile work, stretched sculpturally across a semi-circular structure.

This visual rapport stands in for a broader affinity between the video and textile work: the curator of UNDERFOOT, Dominic Paterson, describes this as a departure for the artist from previous projects and emphasises that this conversation between the two works really sits at the heart of the show. Paterson notes the fascinating link between textile production and computer programming, which creates a circular, reciprocal narrative between textile technology and the digital components deployed in the exhibition. The emergence of computer technology can be partially attributed to the Jacquard Loom, well-known as one of the first programmable technologies.

Many visitors from Glasgow will recognise the boldly patterned carpets that feature in UNDERFOOT as being from the post-1981 Mitchell Library (which are brought to life through digital animation). The video guides the viewer through still images of a modern library space, detailing its spatial, social and material characteristics in vivid and meticulous detail. Price’s specific interest in carpets – which Paterson describes as "lowly things" – continues an ongoing investment in, and affinity for, other materials such as neckties (the subject matter of recent film Felt Tip). In UNDERFOOT, the recognisable carpets of the Mitchell Library become metaphor for "the interactions between social history, popular culture and formal knowledge."

The library, of course, remains an iconic Glasgow venue and public resource, accessible to Glaswegians from a vast range of backgrounds: Paterson describes it beautifully as "a confident, generous and expansive social sphere in which free access to art, books and culture is offered to all." The library’s importance to the communities it serves, especially during the current cost of living crisis, cannot be underestimated, and UNDERFOOT highlights the importance of public and civic inclusiveness at a pivotal moment, after more than a decade of austerity. 

Although Price was born in Bradford and raised in Luton, she has a long-standing relationship with Glasgow, having travelled to the city as a touring musician during the 1980s as part of the indie band Talulah Gosh. Music remains an integral aspect of her practice, and UNDERFOOT is no exception, with a specific nod to the independent music scene in the city that thrives to this day. The video also has continuities with earlier works, primarily the practice of using the lecture as a structuring device, a tool Price has deployed in various works over the past 15 years.

Paterson explains that the exhibition was a collaborative venture from the get-go. The independent Glasgow-based curatorial team Panel and artist and writer Fiona Jardine extended an invitation to the artist to produce a new textile commission. While the artist worked with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh to produce the textile work, the Hunterian was selected as the final exhibition venue.

Price’s interest in 19th-century architecture – which both the Mitchell Library and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery are examples of – binds these two spaces together, in spite of their distinct and perhaps disparate functions and social settings. Price also spent time in the University of Glasgow’s archives, with invaluable support from former Master Weaver Dr Jonathan Cleaver. The starting point for the exhibition was an initial forage into the Stoddard Templeton Collection at the University of Glasgow – this is reflected in the inclusion of two archival images, which show female workers engaged in the production of carpets. The film is narrated entirely by anonymous women workers, whose analysis forms a specific space that emphasises their own desires, their language becoming more sensuous and evocative as the film unravels.

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UNDERFOOT continues at The Hunterian until 16 Apr 2023