Glasgow International Multiples – limited edition artworks

To coincide with the festival, some of the finest artists working in Scotland, including Karla Black and Henry Coombes, have made limited edition artworks available through the Own Art Scheme

Feature by Andrew Cattanach | 04 May 2012

As part of this year’s Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, four of Glasgow’s most established artists have been commissioned to make a limited edition artwork. The artists, including Karla Black, Rob Churm, Henry Coombes and Corin Sworn, have each made an artwork that will be available to buy online through the Own Art scheme, with edition sizes ranging from eight to 125 and include a sculpture, a tea set, a photographic print and vinyl record.

Karla Black came to international prominence when she represented Scotland at last year’s Venice Biennale, filling a 15th century Palazzo with her ephemeral sculptures made from coloured paper, cellophane, soil, powder paint, soap and Vaseline. It was soon regarded as one of the highlights of that year’s festival and shortly after, Black was nominated for the Turner Prize.

For Glasgow International, Black presents new sculptures in a solo show at the Gallery of Modern Art – one of the principle exhibitions of this year’s festival. She’s also produced 100 small-scale sculptures available online from Own Art. Made from polythene, plaster powder, paint and thread, the delicate work comes with a signed note written by the artist giving instructions on how to install it and explores the very nature of sculpture and its physical limits.

Henry Coombes, like the other artists listed here, is a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art. He has a varied practice that includes painting and sculpture, but is perhaps best known for his video works. In 2009 he made The Bedfords, a film about Queen Victoria’s favourite portraitist, Sir Edwin Landseer, that had a brief appearance from Scottish artist and writer Alistair Gray. For GI he presents a new film made while on residency at House for an Art Lover, where the work will be on display.

He’s made a limited edition tea set that references his new video about an architect that becomes a victim of his own utopian vision. In the modernist style, the tea set, with its muted colours and simple form, creates a cubist still life, making every tea time a work of art.

Corin Sworn is an artist concerned with how subjective experience can become subsumed by history – how the life of an individual can become part of a shared narrative – and has recently made films that weave history with autobiography.

She continues her exploration of how we interact with the world and make our mark on history with a new limited edition photographic print. The new work looks at how playgrounds have come to shape us as social agents, allowing us to interact with the built environment.

Artist and musician Rob Churm is principle member of the band Gummy Stumps and was previously a member of the band Park Attack. His gig posters were once ubiquitous around Glasgow and are likely where he first honed his now familiar style of drawing that marries the figurative with the abstract in something akin to a grungy Francis Bacon.

As well as his drawings and prints – and participating in the Prawn’s Pee project for GI at the Old Hairdressers – Churm makes limited edition records. He’s made nine 10” acetate dud plates, each featuring new material and improvisations by his band Gummy Stumps, recorded at the Green Door Studio in Glasgow’s West End.

For more information on how to get your hands on these affordable limited edition artworks visit www.ownart.org.uk.

 

For more information on how to get your hands on these affordable limited edition artworks visit www.culturelabel.com/shop/glasgow-international-festival-of-visual-art For more information about how you can make art buying more affordable by using Own Art see www.ownart.org.uk http://www.culturelabel.com/shop/glasgow-international-festival-of-visual-art