Own Art – GI editions
Every two years the behemoth returns, propping up Glasgow’s reputation as an unexplained, miracle-growing melting pot. For three heady weeks it renders local art-goers’ diaries truly unmanageable. In some measure a marker of who’s worth their salt in the Glasgow art scene, and an occasion where ‘guerrilla’ events have had just as much exposure as the official ones, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art is always worth taking note of.
The 2014 edition – unbelievably, only its sixth – will be directed by Sarah McCrory, who has spent the last two years as curator of Frieze Art Fair and commissioned the previous three years’ Frieze Projects. Quizzed on her move to Glasgow, she described the shift as “nothing thermals won’t fix.”
But where does GI go during the other 49 weeks of the year? One answer is – to New York (the jammy buggers). From 7-10 March 2013, GI will attend Independent New York, an event existing somewhere between a collective exhibition and a re-examination of the art fair model. This year it features over 40 independent galleries and non-profit institutions hailing from over 14 countries – proof that GI plays in the playground with the big kids, if ever it was needed.
While you and I are making sandwiches or nipping to Fopp to bulk-buy cut-price box sets and benefit – regrettably – from its misfortunes, GI are setting up shop in NY. They’ll present two new artists’ editions as well as unique works by artists previously shown at GI Festival, including two artists selected for the Scotland + Venice representation at the Venice Biennale – Karla Black in 2011, and Corin Sworn, who will exhibit later this year in a triple presentation with Duncan Campbell and Hayley Tompkins. Also showing at Independent are editions by Alice Channer, Rob Churm, Jim Lambie, Sue Tompkins, David Noonan, Stephen Sutcliffe, Alan Michael, Ciara Phillips and Jordan Wolfson.
We shouldn’t really give a toss that we’re not at Independent with all that fabulous art, though, because all of the editions GI are presenting can be bought right here at affordable prices through the Own Art scheme. The scheme allows you to spread the cost of your purchase over ten months, making it easy to buy world-class artworks like these.
Glasgow-based Ciara Phillips’ work has graced the walls of many a Glasgow gallery. Her contribution to Pavilion, a recent show at David Dale Gallery, was a neat précis of her practice. Having created a suggestion of a domestic setting in the gallery, James Clarkson invited other artists to complete it and ‘make it habitable.’ Functioning here to frame the structure’s outer limits, Phillips’ textile wall hangings exist between art, design and craft, potentially acting as a decoration or covering for something else. Bearing distinctive patterns and motifs, they suggest high-end design, but a 'handmade' aesthetic or deliberately poor finish draw attention back to the pieces’ own production. A major solo show at Inverleith House in May will explore her printmaking in relation to nature.
Arguably less easily recognisable aesthetically is the work of Stephen Sutcliffe – as an inveterate consumer of TV, Sutcliffe cuts up other people’s videos and reassembles them as his own. Surgically precise editing, the quality of home videos, audio and visuals fragmented into displaced nothings – all of these could be described as defining the look of his work. His name, though, will likely be more familiar – winner of the 2012 Margaret Tait Award for moving image, Sutcliffe's terribly clever new film Outwork has just premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival 2013.