Christmas parties, GSA students and art on eBay: This Week in Scottish Art

Kicking off this week, and already into the last few days of its short run having opened on Friday and closing on Thu 11 Dec, there’s the first exhibit from the latest MFA cohort from the Glasgow School of Art. This show comes at a time when an unusual degree of attention is being paid this programme, after its graduates made up half the nominees for last week’s Turner Prize (as well as providing this year's Turner winner, Duncan Campbell). Loosely curated, there’s no dominant theme to the exhibition; it comes across more as a showcase of the variety of work and the multimedia approach to the course. As a bizarre twist, this exhibition of some of the latest contemporary artists to settle in Glasgow is taking place in a small village on the banks of Loch Ard, in Kinlochard Village Hall – full details of the show, and how to get there, are here.

Also this Thursday (11 Dec), there is an exhibition by Joe Venning at The Number Shop, a repurposed (previously vacant) city centre property in the heart of Edinburgh. Project Director Alistair Grant has set up a number of artists’ studios and an exhibition space, and the current exhibition is the result of Venning’s two month residency in The Number Shop. The show includes “a series of work around the designs of a showroom,” which is for Venning “a concept … the way things are displayed to sell or to convey trends and taste ... a composition and conversation on display.” Venning’s previously sculptural work has quoted conventions of furniture design as a starting point, variously ascetic and delicately decorated. The preview will take place on Thursday at 6pm, and the exhibition will be open until Monday 15 December.

Transmission hosts its Christmas party this Saturday

On Friday 12 Dec, Scott Massey will present a new performance and launch the online project he has completed with Glasgow’s Telfer Gallery throughout 2014. The title of Massey's performance is a bit unwieldy – ‘Originally the written word was secondary to the spoken word. The spoken word implied a relationship of mutual trust. Now the spoken word is secondary to the written word, a contract must be recorded in writing. In a time where everything one does is recorded digitally the performative utterance becomes an act of resistance.’ – but the show is anything but. Along with the performance, Massey’s project will take place on eBay, where “he has put up for sale 52 items related to his practice – the notes, ideas, sketches, recordings, websites and dead ends that have occurred while he has been asking the question “What does nothing do?”. The launch on Friday will take place between 6-9pm, and the performance is at 7pm.

In Glasgow this Saturday, it's the Transmission Christmas party. Having been immortalised in Franz Ferdinand’s Do You Want To, Transmission parties raise expectations. To meet these high hopes, Transmission have scheduled a diverse line-up from atmospheric guitars in the Rosy Crucifixion to R 'n' B with powerful performer and songwriter Poisonous Relationship. Watch the video for Poisonous Relationship’s Men’s Feelings below. The party is at Transmission from 7pm, and entry is a reasonable £3.

Also in Glasgow this week, Dominic Samsworth’s exhibition Salting the Mirage is into the final days of its run. With wall-based abstractions that are lifted wholesale from “off-the-peg swimming pool designs,” Samsworth calls to mind Ruscha’s Nine Swimming Pools and the coolness of Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. Employing the grammar of leisure design, Samsworth raises general concerns as to the generation of value and values within artworks, juxtaposing the impact of the visual arts with the creation of commercial appeal. Salting the Mirage continues until Saturday 13 Dec at SWG3.

Lastly, here is a reminder to book tickets for Dundee Contemporary Arts’ event next Wednesday 17 December at 6pm, TV21. The project involves 16-19 year olds from around Dundee, who were given access to the REWIND Artists’ Video archive based at Duncan of Jordanstone. After an introduction to the archive and training in filmmaking, the participants have created new work inspired by the REWIND archive. This event is free but ticketed.

MORE FROM THE SKINNY:

• Our monthly round-up of the biggest and best shows in Scottish art

• The Mysterious Island: Interview with Collette Rayner

• Get in 'the Christmas spirit' with our cracker jokes