This Week in Scottish Art: 20-26 September
Openings, performances and artist talks take place through the week across Glasgow and Edinburgh, including the last in the Transmission's series of experimental form artist talks, and an imaginary nightclub presented in the publication Ultra Vires.
Wed 21 Sep: New work at St Mary's Cathedral
In Edinburgh, there's the preview for A So Disastrous Pathos from 4-9pm in St Mary's Cathedral. This show brings together a group of artists looking to make art that has the revolutionary potential of bringing out the repressed and effaced parts of the psyche. This is intended to bring back to sight what is not accomodated by a present time that they characterise by "absolute mediocrity and utility economics".
Thu 22 Sep: Six Foot Gallery, David Dale, Transmission
At 6pm, Six Foot Gallery presents Ex-Colonies, a joint exhibition by Sam Wood and Jack Low. The two Scotland-based photographer-filmmakers present the photographic work they have made as "outsiders looking" in across Zimbabwe and Canada.
Then at 7pm, head to David Dale Gallery, who are putting on Lightreading for the launch of a new publication, Ultra Vires. It's a collection of architectural imaginings, with each contribution proposing a room within a nightclub designed by different architects. We're also meant to imagine at each point that it's 7am and the building is winding down, and all with the "aim of imagining what we have trouble practicing and practicing what we have trouble imagining." For the occasion, there will also be a specially-devised bespoke cocktail.
At 8pm, Spite House takes residence again in Transmission Gallery for a gig, with a lineup that includes some "explosive and sassy hard pop" in the form of Doe and Charla Fantasma on their joint tour, as well as Glasgow outfits Chump, and Curdle.
Fri 23 Sep: Luca George, Trigger Words & more
Memories Are Made of This, says Luca George for his solo show in Telfer Gallery, opening from 6pm. For this show, he's looking back on his time as a teenage breakdancer in the Original Prankster Crew and touring around Boston, Rhode Island and New York. Maybe you'll remember when his video was posted here in 2015, I'll Never Get to Nirvana ...
Trigger Words is the eye-grabbing title of Glasgow Print Studio's show this Saturday, previewing from 6pm. They look to a list of artists associated with the Glasgow Print Studio Press, operating during the late 1970s. There are lots of recognisable names included, with poet Liz Lochhead including some paintings, and the Glasgow stalwart Alasdair Gray also including work. Also featured are Glasgow Boy Adrian Wiszniewski, alongside Glasgow Miracle artist Ross Sinclair, and the late, great poet Edwin Morgan.
Continuing West, there's Final Incarnation in Voidoid Archive by Aniara Omann from 7pm. Omann's multimedia and performance work often combines element of prosthetics, references to prehistory and science fiction.
New York-based painter Matt Connors presents a new body of work in The Modern Institute, for preview of The Flat Voice from 7-9pm. Connors locates his work in the traditions of abstract painting, and his large scale acrylic works on canvas explores the possibilities of colour, painted space and composition.
Sat 24 Sep: Sue Tompkins, Jennifer West
At the Old Hairdressers this Saturday from 7.30pm 'til midnight is a performance by Glasgow-based artist Sue Tompkins, alongside experimental musicians WIDT and TRACT/Ela Orleans. For her part, Tompkins often presents breathless recitations, seemingly from bundles of papers (sometimes in ringbinders, otherwise bundles somehow). There's a little snatch of song sometimes, along with breaking down words into punchy syllables.
There's another chance to catch Tramway exhibitor Jennifer West's performance piece Flashlight Filmstrip Projections from 3-3.30pm. See the space activated by Glasgow-based dancer Ruth Mills, who will shine torches onto filmstrips draped and hung around the space, making images appear on the walls.
Sun 25 Sep: Efan Ifekoya at Transmission
From 3-5pm, Transmission present the third and final talk in their series of expanded artists' talks through this month. London-based artist Evan Ifekoya presents a radio play-in-progress, and specifically reworked for Glasgow with co-performer Cass Ezeji. It forms part of an ongoing project by Ifekoya titled "A Score, A Groove, A Phantom". which investifates "archives of blackness, sociality and inheritance as they diffract through queer nightlife and trauma in the present moment".