Scottish Art News for September 2015: What's Oak

Until 25 September, Glasgow-based artist Sogol Mabadi will be hosted in different homes as she comes to understand 'veiling'. There will also be a series of performances accompanying these house visits. By these means, she considers veiling and its different forms – that’s to say the means by which proximity is achieved, through separation: 'In order to obtain an intimate sense/taste of the Other, we resist verbal communication and eye-contact.' To discuss a potential visit, contact details can be found on her website: sogolmabadi.com.

Recent graduate Theo Shields organises a new takeover event for Generator in Dundee until 8 September. For his slot, Shields puts on a solo show of his sculptural work across wood and metal. For Oak and Iron, Shields works with two traditional Scottish craftspersons in order to create work with cut wood and recycled metals. Accompanying the works are two video documentaries contextualising one of Shields’ collaborators, plus the Scottish trades and relationship with raw materials.

On Friday 11 September from 6pm in the Modern Institute, two new exhibitions will be previewed. On Osborne Street until 24 October, there’s Michael Wilkinson's Sorry Had to be Done. Living and working in Glasgow, Wilkinson works both on wall-based and with sculptures with variously manipulated found objects. Taking his cue from 70s and 80s punk music, there is also the influence of radical leftist legacies. Hayley Tompkins, who works across carefully wrought paintings and assemblages, will be on Aird’s Lane with Electric Magnetic Installation, showing recent work until 7 November.

From 17 September 5.30-7.30pm  in Dundee’s Cooper Gallery, there is the opening for the work made as part of the summer residence 2015. This year’s residence combined Glasgow-based artist Oliver Braid with Brussels-based artist Anouchka Oler and Edinburgh-based philosopher Joseph Fletcher. Work made for this new show, titled Thingness?, has come from discussion between the three, applying philosophical theory to art practice. They were also, in turn, informed by weekly discussion groups held as the Cooper Summer Salons. Thingness? continues until 10 October.

In the Common Guild, the second of this year’s programme of two shows opens on Friday 25 September. From 6-8pm the gallery previews new works by the German-born Los Angeles- and Berlin-based photographer. In his work, he often constructs paper models of places of particular historical sensitivity or significance. For those who witnessed touring exhibition Art from Elsewhere, Demand’s work may be familiar. Showcasing the works purchased on behalf of the city by The Common Guild for Glasgow’s art collection, there was a work by Demand, Photo Booth. Looking like an innocuous, if makeshift photo booth, it is revealed to be a photography of an accurate paper model of a point of deliberate exposure of East Berlin prisoners to radiation, many of whom later died of leukaemia. His work is subtle and affecting.

A new body of work from sculptor Nicolas Deshayes will be exhibited in the Glasgow Sculpture Studios from 26 September until 12 December. London-based French artist Nicolas Hayes employs the most recent industrial processes and materials. While they may be high-sheen and with a finish of 'slick industrial surfaces,' they incorporate 'a human presence in the form of glutinously rich bodily allusions, engaging with the materials in ways that distort the ordinary.'

At the very end of this month, the Fruitmarket Gallery host Extracurricular Activity: Undermining Histories of Art. 'Humour, (anti-)education and contemporary art' will be the topic of conversation for academics Catherine Spencer (University of St Andrews) and Moran Sheleg (UCL). Tickets should be booked (fast) from Eventbrite for the night on Monday 28 September 6-8pm.