Satellites, Self-Branding, and the New East End: This Week in Scottish Art
Glasgow School of Art hosts its degree show, the deadline looms for Collective's Satellites programme, and there are launches a-plenty at Edinburgh Printmakers, Koppe Astner and CCA.
With two of the big four down, it’s Glasgow School of Art’s turn this week to launch a couple of hundred young artists and designers. First up on Wednesday night, the new Masters of Fine Art will share the products of two years’ study in the Glue Factory from 6pm, with an afterparty at the Art School (the Student Association on Scott Street) from 9pm. From Saturday, the undergraduate degree show will be open across the Trongate at the Tontine Building, as well the Reid Building on Renfrew Street.
Not to be left out of the fun, a selection of the MLitt students (who have their final show in September) will also be holding two exhibitions in Iota Gallery in Hyndland over the following weeks. Titled ‘11 Seconds’, the students will come from a range of different disciplinary specialisms within the postgraduate departments. The first presentation opens from 6-9pm this Saturday (13 Jun).
To all of the graduands and fairly recent graduates, it’s worth noting that the deadline for Collective Gallery's Satellites Programme 2016 is on 18 June. This is a well-established programme run from the Edinburgh gallery, and brings together artists in the early stage of their careers with mentors and writers. Previously known as New Work Scotland, we profiled the initiative for its tenth birthday back in 2009. We should also alert you to the fact that this week is your last chance to catch graduate showcase They Had 4 Years at Generator Projects in Dundee – the show runs from Thursday to Sunday this week.
From the densely populated degree show, to something a bit quieter (for the moment, at least) in David Dale. Celebrating 5 years of the Glasgow space, Finite Project Altered When Open will see past collaborators and previous exhibitors gradually fill an empty gallery. With a hefty list on the website, it seems that while the project may be starting sparse, it’s likely to become a very full exhibition as “the artists, writers, curators and organisation are free to contribute whenever they see fit.” The deadline is 4 July, when the gallery will "stop, call it an exhibition, and have a party" from 5pm ‘til late.
Tim Dalzell's new show continues at Telfer Gallery this week
This month’s Skinny Showcase artist Tim Dalzell exhibits alongside fellow GSA Phoenix Bursary recipients Fran Caballero and Caitlin Merrett King in the Telfer Gallery. The three artists consider themselves related by “a spontaneous approach to making and a focus on the hyper-real representations and simulations of the everyday.” Titled 'If Any, Before', this is the last exhibition in the Telfer Gallery’s current space in the Merchant City, before they move down a few floors and across town to a more accessible public-facing space in the Barras Market. The show runs until 21 June.
This Wednesday (10 Jun) in The Old Hairdressers, multidisciplinary artist Charlotte Cousins presents her photographic and sculptural works, which address the complexities of memory and the traces left by use of objects, as well the fragmentation of objects. As part of the Old Hairdressers' programme of one-night shows, 'The Sea Refuses No River' takes place betwen 5-9pm.
This Friday, Glasgow's Koppe Astner (fka Kendall Koppe) preview the first solo UK exhibition by Phillip Zach. Working against “the economy of recognisability and the self-branding as an artist”, there’s an inconsistency that disrupts any attempt to follow Zach's career with ease. His work spans text, objects, installations, curatorial projects, process based exhibitions and collaborations – his latest work launches from 6-9pm this Friday.
Upstairs in Mary Mary, at the same time as Phillip Zach’s preview (Fri 12 Jun, 6-9pm), New York-based Aliza Nisenbaum presents new paintings in her first UK show. Primarily painting undocumented immigrants, in this show Nisenbaum expands her purview, including images of her colleagues and friends, as well as still life work. Nisenbaum takes a critical approach to painting, often allowing details to dominate work overwhelm conventional notions of painterly “synthesis” and simplification.
Also this Friday, in Edinburgh Printmakers, from 6-7pm Faisal Abdu’Allah introduces his new exhibition 'Squad' with an artist talk. After discussion of the concept of 'Squad' – free tickets for which can be booked here – the preview of the show takes place between 7-9pm. Abdu'Allah's work more generally takes the form of large public commissions and uses a range of different printmaking techniques in order to present accessible work on difficult social issues.
Back to Glasgow on Saturday, with a free seminar to accompany the current exhibition of the work of artist Stephen Hurrell and social ecologist Ruth Brennan at the Gallery of Modern Art. Together they made the work Clyde Reflections, which is based on the Firth of Clyde on the West Coast of Scotland, exploring the site also as a means to think about the constantly changing relationship between people and place. This Saturday, Hurrell and Brennan are joined by a range of experts to discuss the issues present within, and the implications of, the work currently being exhibited in GoMA.
Finally, back in November this column featured East End Transmissions, an exhibition in The Pipe Factory which looked at the East End as a shifting site of deprivation and regeneration. With the rash of recent subway adverts for affordable homes in the “New East End”, the launch of the publication accompanying the exhibition comes as timeous as ever. At CCA this Saturday from 7:30pm there will be screenings and music to celebrate the publication’s launch, with a programme of artists’ film and experimental documentaries on regeneration plans past and present across the world, along with a DJ session. Essays in the publication come from EET curator Francesca Zappia, along with CCA director Francis McKee.