Studio Project 10 at the Market Gallery
Regular invasions of tracksuit-clad teens keep the makers on their toes with questions of 'Wha's tha'?' 'Why ye done tha'?'
| 06 Mar 2008
Located in Glasgow's Dennistoun, the Market Gallery has spent the last eight years and several different voluntary committees, striving to create a reputation both for itself and for the artists to whom it offers exposure and a post-graduation space in which to work. Exposure is a particularly apt word in a description of Market's studio project. The logistics of the project are that following an open submission and application process, selected artists are given the opportunity to spend four weeks working in the gallery space developing new work. This is subsequently displayed in the same space for a period of three weeks.
The space itself is a unique one, the process of producing work within it surely a new experience for the recent graduates who frequently grace the programme. Two glass-fronted former shops make up the work-cum-exhibition space, and the artists create work in full view of the street outside. Their singularly exposed position lends the process of making a work feel performance-like, and in turn creates an intriguing interaction between east-end locals and the artists. Regular invasions of tracksuit-clad teens keep the makers on their toes with questions of 'Wha's tha'?', 'Why ye done tha'?' and occasional attempts to swipe the tools.
There is a genuine interest on their part however, an interest very far removed from the rarified confines of the art world. This interest and interaction are things that give Market's studio project its unique edge, and it is a challenge to which involved artists must respond. Scott Laverie, a former Studio Project participant, chose to make a secret room at the back of the space with a pedal-operated door. "The neds loved it. They'd go and get their pals to come see it," he says. "I liked that though. In a way I wanted to make works for them, rather than for an art audience." This is what the project can be about- a chance to make art for those without preconceptions, a chance to pitch work between interactivity, aesthetic, meaning, and see if it can still be effective when stripped of all that art chat.
This year's project recipients are GSA graduate Pio Abad and a German collaborative partnership of Gregory Maass and Nayoungim. Abad graduated in painting, and received some attention for his intricate drawings of hair and geometric shapes displayed on roundel-like boards in a hexagonal room. For this show he has chosen to make them real, branching into sculpture in a move which he attributes to the post-9/11 aesthetic zeitgeist: "Sculpture defined society at the beginning of the 21st century. If you look at the iconic images and events - the twin towers, the fall of the statue of Saddam - they're all sculptural."
He has chosen to make a series of four pieces, monster-like constructions which are, roughly, Madame de Pompadour wigs bedecked in pearls and dusty ribbons, manipulated into anthropomorphically allusive forms to create a 'monster movie post-apocalyptic museum'. He claims that he has taken the Pompadour wig 'to its almost logical conclusion', creating these semi-horrific fragments of form from the materials of the baroque, the luxe, the decadent, in an effort to examine the attraction/repulsion inherent in our relationship with such signifiers of luxury. The show will be entitled Here Lies Love, reportedly the words Imelda Marcos wants inscribed upon her gravestone. Abad was born in the Philippines, so Marcos is a figure who could perhaps be seen as the apotheosis of his dualities of attraction/repulsion, the luxe and the base. She is a symbol of decadence, consumerism, material aspiration, and unfortunately also the most internationally renowned figure from Abad's homeland. By exploring this duality with items of the European Baroque, Abad explores notions which trouble him both in the language of his land of birth, and in the vernacular of the Europe which he has made his current home.
It's certainly raised some intrigue in the local community already. Passing dogs have apparently been taking offence at the poodle-permed forms, standing outside the gallery windows barking at the hairy relics of atom-bombed luxury. It's a promising, reactive start for Abad, and a worthy continuation of a pioneering programme of artistic endeavour.
The space itself is a unique one, the process of producing work within it surely a new experience for the recent graduates who frequently grace the programme. Two glass-fronted former shops make up the work-cum-exhibition space, and the artists create work in full view of the street outside. Their singularly exposed position lends the process of making a work feel performance-like, and in turn creates an intriguing interaction between east-end locals and the artists. Regular invasions of tracksuit-clad teens keep the makers on their toes with questions of 'Wha's tha'?', 'Why ye done tha'?' and occasional attempts to swipe the tools.
There is a genuine interest on their part however, an interest very far removed from the rarified confines of the art world. This interest and interaction are things that give Market's studio project its unique edge, and it is a challenge to which involved artists must respond. Scott Laverie, a former Studio Project participant, chose to make a secret room at the back of the space with a pedal-operated door. "The neds loved it. They'd go and get their pals to come see it," he says. "I liked that though. In a way I wanted to make works for them, rather than for an art audience." This is what the project can be about- a chance to make art for those without preconceptions, a chance to pitch work between interactivity, aesthetic, meaning, and see if it can still be effective when stripped of all that art chat.
This year's project recipients are GSA graduate Pio Abad and a German collaborative partnership of Gregory Maass and Nayoungim. Abad graduated in painting, and received some attention for his intricate drawings of hair and geometric shapes displayed on roundel-like boards in a hexagonal room. For this show he has chosen to make them real, branching into sculpture in a move which he attributes to the post-9/11 aesthetic zeitgeist: "Sculpture defined society at the beginning of the 21st century. If you look at the iconic images and events - the twin towers, the fall of the statue of Saddam - they're all sculptural."
He has chosen to make a series of four pieces, monster-like constructions which are, roughly, Madame de Pompadour wigs bedecked in pearls and dusty ribbons, manipulated into anthropomorphically allusive forms to create a 'monster movie post-apocalyptic museum'. He claims that he has taken the Pompadour wig 'to its almost logical conclusion', creating these semi-horrific fragments of form from the materials of the baroque, the luxe, the decadent, in an effort to examine the attraction/repulsion inherent in our relationship with such signifiers of luxury. The show will be entitled Here Lies Love, reportedly the words Imelda Marcos wants inscribed upon her gravestone. Abad was born in the Philippines, so Marcos is a figure who could perhaps be seen as the apotheosis of his dualities of attraction/repulsion, the luxe and the base. She is a symbol of decadence, consumerism, material aspiration, and unfortunately also the most internationally renowned figure from Abad's homeland. By exploring this duality with items of the European Baroque, Abad explores notions which trouble him both in the language of his land of birth, and in the vernacular of the Europe which he has made his current home.
It's certainly raised some intrigue in the local community already. Passing dogs have apparently been taking offence at the poodle-permed forms, standing outside the gallery windows barking at the hairy relics of atom-bombed luxury. It's a promising, reactive start for Abad, and a worthy continuation of a pioneering programme of artistic endeavour.
Until 21 Mar
http://www,marketgallery.org.uk