Glasgow International Person

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art is without doubt Scotland’s foremost contemporary art event. Kicking off on 20 April, the biannual festival sees 18 days of premium art exhibitions and one-off events take place across the city, with some shows running on until June. Among the many artists on show, Glasgow International will host major solo exhibitions by Turner Prize winner Richard Wright and recent Turner Prize nominee Karla Black.

Now in its fifth edition, the festival includes more than 130 artists showing over nearly 50 permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, bringing with them a real festival atmosphere to rival anything the Continent might have to offer. There will be everything you can imagine to feast your eyes on from paintings and performances to sculptures and video installations.

As well as the major art spaces across Glasgow taking part in the festivities, including GoMA, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and CCA, many of the smaller, artist-run spaces, such as The Duchy, David Dale and Transmission, will be no less involved. This will make for a varied programme of groundbreaking contemporary art, with big-name acts alongside up-and-coming artists.

This year, the festival organisers offer you the chance to get more involved and support the event with a £20 donation, making you a G.I.P. – a Glasgow International Person. In return you’ll receive, among other things, an artist-designed G.I.P membership card and invites to an exclusive festival director’s talk and curator-led tours, as well as advance bookings for ticketed festival events.

“Becoming a G.I.P provides you with the best possible opportunity to experience all that the festival has to offer,” says GI’s Dom Hastings. “For a £20 fee, you’re sent a copy of the festival guide, receive invites to special events and are given advance booking privileges for performances, such as The Making Of at Tramway and A Piece Danced Alone at CCA. On top of that, you’ll have the opportunity to attend exclusive events such as the festival director’s talk, receive an artist-designed G.I.P. membership card and a badge designed by David Shrigley.”

The Making Of is a brand new collaboration between theatre director Graham Eatough and visual artist Graham Fagen.  They’ve been working alongside director of photography Michael McDonough and film producer Angela Murray to create a cross-disciplinary event that encompasses theatre, visual art and film. During the first weekend of the festival, the work will consist of a ticketed promenade performance that takes place on a film set, where audience members are invited to participate as extras. For the remainder of the exhibition, visitors can look round the staged environment, which will at times be animated by performers; meanwhile, the resulting footage from the opening weekend will be made into a work in its own right, to be presented at a later date.

A Piece Danced Alone is Zurich-based artist, performer and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis’ most recent work. The performance, which will take place at CCA on Sauchiehall Street, will see two identically dressed performers carry out a sequence of simple movements that, through repetition and transgression, imperceptibly evolves.

To make sure that you get advance booking privileges for these two events, plus many more, visit www.glasgowinternational.org and become a G.I.P. Or for more information about becoming a G.I.P. email sponsorship@glasgowinternational.org or call 0141 353 8041.