This Week in Scottish Art: 25 Apr – 1 May

Thu 27 Apr: Talbot Rice Gallery, Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Peacock Visual Arts Centre

Five Joan Eardley Pictures presented by Kirkcaldy Orchestral Society takes place this evening at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 6 to 6.30pm. Kirkcaldy Orchestral Society will play composer John Gourlay’s Five Joan Eardley Pictures, a trio of duets with connections to visual art techniques: Aquarelle, Lithoglyph and Impasto. This is a free event, no booking is required.

And Tides, a live performance by JL Williams and Catherine Street takes place at Talbot Rice Gallery today from 6pm. Collaborators Williams and Street have worked together since 2012. Their audio work Between Poles, featured in Talbot Rice’s current exhibition Between Poles and Tides, is a recording of Williams’ letters to Street. During this performance, the artists are present for a live reading of the letters; And Tides also marks the first occasion Street’s responses to Williams’ are voiced. This event is free, but please book a ticket in advance here on Eventbrite.  

Thomson & Craighead opens at the Peacock Visual Arts Room & Castlegate in Aberdeen today. London-based artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead appropriate images, texts and archived data to create lyrical video, sound, sculptural and installation work, which employs cinema’s dramatic conventions and examines the information age’s changing socio-political structures. Existing works Aberdeen Wall (2010-17) and Here (2013) are on display, alongside a new work titled Control Room for which the artists added audio to a corporate video presentation of Aberdeen harbour made in the 1980s.

This free exhibition, suitable for all ages, is part of this year’s Look Again Visual Art and Design Festival. The preview runs from 7-9pm and is followed by the launch party for Look Again 2017 at UNDERDOG from 1am; all proceeds go to CLAN Cancer Support. Thomson & Craighead remains on display until 27 May, visit everyday from 10am to 5pm including Monday's bank holiday.

Fri 28 Apr: Glasgow Open House Festival, 16 Nicholson Street, David Dale Gallery & more  

This year’s Glasgow Open House Festival runs over the weekend and Monday’s bank holiday. A large variety of exhibitions take over the city’s private homes and public venues, visit the festival’s website here for a full listing, or take a look at our pick of the programme here. The festival opens this evening with a procession and dance led by artist collectives Baba/waltz and Good Fortune from 6-9pm. Baba/waltz (Babaloose and Bart Waltz) will kick off the celebration and thank all participating artists with song and a Maypole dance at the Laurieston Arena at Norfolk Court on Gorbals Street opposite the Citizens Theatre. Following the Maypole, a musical procession will walk to the Laurieston Arches to open the gates to Good Fortune, enlivening the Arches’ dank and dark tunnels around 7pm. After the opening, Good Fortune lives on as Double Happiness, which will be open noon till 5pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday.       

Also part of Glasgow Open House Festival, a new show by Jessica Higgins at 16 Nicholson Street previews tonight from 5 to 8pm. After Hours is a sculpture, video and print installation considering the individual and collective subject’s role in modern capitalism; Higgins’ research material and a new publication will also be on display. Until 14 May 14, 1-6pm on Fridays, noon till 5pm on weekends.  

Solo exhibition Private Secretaries by Glasgow-based Canadian artist Lauren Hall opens at David Dale Gallery and Studios tonight from 6-9pm. Private Secretaries is a two-part sculptural installation completed by its viewers’ sensory engagement and interpretation in David Dale’s gallery space and warehouse right across. Higgins aims to recreate the potential for positive experience through sensory stimulus; the show runs until 3 June at David Dale, noon to 6pm from Thursday to Sunday.  

Deus ex Machina, an exhibition by Katrina Valle and Selma Hreggviðsdóttir also opens tonight at Civic Room from 7 to 9pm. For the exhibition, Civic Room transforms into a stage set for live operatic performance in collaboration with Oscar Prentice-Middleton and Rose Strachniewska at 8pm. The exhibition considers people’s perceptions of built and political environments; it runs until 14 May, open Tuesday to Sunday from 12-5pm.

Scott Myles’ exhibition This Way Out at The Modern Institute on Aird’s Lane closes tomorow; visit this evening for the closing reception from 7-9pm, or tomorrow during noon till 5pm. Myles has turned the Aird’s Lane exhibition space into his studio for the duration of This Way Out, while he produces work for another exhibition. Myles’ main motivation for this exhibition is a series of print-based paintings made over the last two years in the exact dimensions of his studio’s door. Outside Myles’ studio and separated from their reference, these are arbitrarily sized, but retain symbolic meaning as thresholds through which the artist’s work passes to the public world from the site of their creation.

Sat 29 Apr: CCA, The Old Fruitmarket and Ingleby Gallery

Glasgow Zine Fest runs today and tomorrow at CCA; on the weekend agenda are a series of screenings, zine-making workshops, seminars and talks focused on engagement and equality, but the main event remains the zine fair featuring all types of zines for sale. Visit the CCA event page here for a comprehensive schedule. GZF is open from 11am to 6pm today and from 10am to 3pm tomorrow.

The third annual Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair takes over The Old Fruitmarket from 10am to 6pm today, 10am to 5pm tomorrow. Work by emerging and established artists is on display and for sale for different budgets. £3 tickets are sold at the door for entry (a 2-for-1 deal is available), under-16s admission is free.

Today is the last day to see and per se and: part IV – Katie Paterson & Laurence Sterne at Ingleby Gallery, open today from 11am to 5pm. In this instalment of and per se and, a rolling sequence of exhibition pairing artworks by different artists, Paterson’s All the Dead Stars and the black page from Sterne’s The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy are displayed alongside each other.

Sun 30 Apr: Tramway, GSA Galleries, The Telfer Gallery & more

No fewer than six exhibitions close today. Visit Tramway to catch Siobhan Davies Dance: material / rearranged / to / be on its last day. The touring exhibition, presented by Dance International Glasgow, is a new performance installation featuring work by multiple choreographers, visual artists, designers and scientists exploring how the body feels "during the act of doing". Selected works explore lost movements from the past in reference to art historian Aby Warburg’s project revealing latent relationships between images from different places and times. Admission to material / rearranged / to / be is free and unticketed.  

Professors' Sketchbooks in the GSA's Reid Building closes today (10am and 4.30pm). The exhibition features architects professors Andrew MacMillan and Charles MacCallum's personal sketchbooks revealing an architect’s observations and thought procedure.

Visit The Telfer Gallery between noon and 5pm to see Landscapes, People, Buildings by Ewan Murray, the head towards The Pipe Factory to see new work by Brian McFie and Geneva Sills. McFie’s paintings fluctuate between gestural mark-making and plein air “training”. Sill’s silver gelatin prints explore the gap between photography and painting by experimenting with black and whit film processing.  

In Edinburgh, Sarah Boulton’s Saying yes with no evidence closes today at Rhubaba gallery in Edinburgh. The exhibition is the first in a series of shows for which Rhubaba has commissioned artists to haunt their gallery space. Visit between noon and 5pm.

Finally, a constellation is forming here closes at Generator Projects in Dundee. The exhibition is a presentation of new work by artists Linda Bolsakova and Brodie Sim. Bolsakova and Sim both take inspiration from the natural world; in a constellation is forming here the artists explore material and poetic resonances between their work. Visit between noon and 5pm.

Mon 1 May: Arusha Gallery and UnderDog

Blair McLaughlin’s show Departs de Biscottes closes today at Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh. The paintings on display result from extensive research exploration into subjects of violence, politics and philosophy. McLaughlin is concerned with shared political realities and painting, as a mirror for historical shifts in thought, equally. Visit between 10am and 5pm.

Pillow Talk: Collaborations is hosted by Visual Artists Unit at UNDERDOG in Aberdeen this evening from 6 to 8pm as part of the Look Again: Visual Art and Design Festival’s programme. Artists Louise Scullion, from Dalziel & Scullion, and Graeme Roger, from Roger & Reid, will be present to discuss collaborative practices. Purchase your tickets here in advance; they cost £3, (£3.90 including service fee).