Scottish Art Highlights: May 2025

Opening for the summer at Jupiter Artland, artist Jonathan Baldock exhibits new works in rebuttal to the homophobic argument that queerness is 'unnatural' at the art park's Ballroom Gallery. Cast from Baldock and his partner’s bodies, fantastical hybrid creatures resemble sirens, harpies and cervitaurs in celebration of difference. WYRD opens 10 May. 

In Glasgow, CCA’s beloved exhibition space reopens with The Ring in the Fish by Alia Syed on 17 May. Shot on 16mm film and collaged together as a series of vignettes, The Ring in the Fish draws on the stories and psyches of migrant South Asian communities who arrived in Glasgow in the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by Saint Mungo, the founder and patron saint of Glasgow, and the English fairytale, The Fish and the Ring, the artwork strives to explore the role of imagination in migrant experiences. 

Punk-feminist artist Linder Sterling brings her provocative and political collages to Scotland for her first ever retrospective here. For five decades, Linder has been pulling apart patriarchal notions of femininity and sexuality. Starting with her early collages made during Manchester’s punk explosion, the exhibition brings us up to date on the artist’s current practice, which encompasses photography, performance and sculpture. Following resounding success at Hayward Gallery, London, Linder: Danger Came Smiling arrives in Inverleith House at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The exhibition opens on 23 May and continues until 19 October.

On 24 May, Jeremy Deller, a conceptual artist who revels in satire, invites you to gather in Dundee to 'Meet the Gods'. Conceived by Deller, Meet the Gods is one of four nationwide performances known as The Triumph of Art. In Dundee, local art students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design lead a communal performance that promises a chance to connect with the Roman deity Bacchus and his mythical counterparts. Alongside, Fallope and the Tubes, a self-described “weirdo-punk performance band”, take to the stage. In true punk fashion, participants can also create their DIY merch under the creative guidance of kennardphillips, an artistic and activist duo who confront war across the globe.