0 GI on the Starting Blocks....

As I write, last minute prep is going on the biannual contemporary art shebang which puts the city of Glasgow on the international art map.

Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art runs from 20 April – 7 May 2012 and includes a series of highlights listed below as well as work by over 130 artists in over 50 venues across the city of Glasgow.

I was over in Govan a few days ago meeting Matt Baker & ts beall (Tara to her friends) who are producing the gloriously gallus Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us. Keep having to run my tongue around that one as it's t-t-too tricky!

Together with their trusty partners in art, their pledge is that they will 'use obsolete technology to hurl language across Glasgow's River Clyde'. And why not?  

It all happens in Govan 

Matt and Tara are staging Some Questions About Govan in Honour of George Wyllie as part of their contribution to GI from 6-9pm on Tue May 1 at The Pearce Institute in Govan.

As one of the Chum Chivviers in Chief at Whysman HQ (www.whysman.co.uk) I was there to talk about the ins and outs of the night, highlights of which will include a screening of Murray & Barbara Grigor's newly re-mastered 1990 film, The Whys?Man, an historical talk about Doomster Hill (the ancient moot hill of the Kingdom of Strathclyde), Cinema Actions 1971 film on the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-In and a seven minute long film documenting The Govan Raid, a 2011 public art event by Matt Baker.

See more about this 'quirky but strangely grounded'* crew at: 

www.aboutuswithoutus.com

I'm going to Kelvingrove tonight, where an exhibition of work on paper by Glasgow-grown Turner Prize winner Richard Wright, is being opened and then on to Tramway for a rehearsal of The Making of Us.

(If you search elsewhere on this blog, I interviewed Richard Wright in 2010 - the piece was in Homes & Interiors Scotland magazine)

I'll report back....

GI Programme Highlights Include:

Richard Wright – Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum

The first ever exhibition of works on paper by Glasgow based 2009 Turner Prize winner Wright.

Karla Black – GoMA

The largest show to date in Scotland by Glasgow-based, 2011 Turner Prize nominee Karla Black, who will exhibit a series of major new sculptures in the grand ground floor of the Gallery of Modern Art

Jeremy Deller – Glasgow Green

Jeremy Deller will present Sacrilege, a major new, interactive public artwork to be situated on Glasgow Green. This project is a co-commission by GI Festival and the Mayor of London.

The Making of Us – Tramway

A project by award-winning Scottish artist Graham Fagen, esteemed theatre director Graham Eatough and Scottish director of photography Michael McDonough, which will invite the audience into the place between art installation, promenade theatre and film-making. This project is a co-commission by GI Festival and the National Theatre of Scotland.

Kelly Nipper – Tramway

An ambitious installation by this Los Angeles-based multimedia artist.

Alexandra Bachzetsis – CCA

The Scottish premiere of a new performance work for the stage (co-produced with Chisenhale Gallery, London) by artist, performer and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis, who will confront the audience with a series of micro-performances.

Rosalind Nashashibi  – GI Festival Hub Space

A film installation and a new film commission by Glasgow School of Art graduate Rosalind Nashashibi (co-commissioned with Scottish Ballet).

Wolfgang Tillmans – The Common Guild

The Common Guild will present Scotland’s first solo exhibition by Wolfgang Tillmans since 1995. The show will include an important group of works acquired by the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre.

There are 60 exhibitions and 95 events in the programme, full details of which can be found on: www.glasgowinternational.org

* All my own work

Detail: GI on the Starting Blocks....

0 Onward the Risorgimento of the Great George* (Wyllie...)

This is an edited version of a news story written by me for today's Herald newspaper about an exhibition at The Collins Gallery to kick off the celebrations for George Wyllie's 90th birthday.

It isn't online (yet), so am posting it here.

The quote* in the headline comes from the veteran film maker, writer and exhibition curator, Murray Grigor, who is a fellow Friend of George Wyllie. I'm a much more recent Friend than Murray, whose friendship goes back a long, long way with George.

Murray emailed me last week to say that he's hoping to bring out a remastered version of his 1989 film about George, Why?sman, with DVD extras derived from 32 Spires for Ireland, Fakelore and George's witty sequence from The Gaelic book film in which he pushes for the Vikings.

We are hoping that the Why?sman will be screened in Glasgow during George's birthday year. He's 90 on Hogmanay this year.

I met George for the first time last week and age may be wearying him but the essential Wyllie spirit is still very much alive and kicking. 

You can track news of George Wyllie's 90th birthday year (ForTheBurds) at:

Twitter (@ForTheBurds)

and

Facebook (ForTheBurds)

'The Great George' at home in Gourock

Here's the story from The Herald:

AN exhibition of archive material donated to Strathclyde University’s Collins Gallery by groundbreaking Scots sculptor, George Wyllie, is to go on show next April in what could be the gallery’s last ever exhibition.

Wyllie, who turns 90 on December 31 this year, has a long association with the gallery, which has been in existence since 1973. His first major exhibition was held there in 1976 and he was given an honorary doctorate by the University in 1990.

The Collins was earmarked for closure earlier this year by the University following a series of cultural cuts, which has seen its Ramshorn Theatre close, its director of music, Alan Tavener, being made redundant, and the axe falling on courses in applied music, community education, geography and sociology.

A spokesman for the University confirmed last night that it was currently ‘exploring the potential of establishing the gallery as an independent entity supported by a range of income streams.’ 

Meanwhile, key staff at the gallery, including Laura Hamilton, who has been its curator since 1988, plus four part-time staff, have been told they will lose their jobs when the George Wyllie exhibition closes on May 28.

The spokesman added: “Funding for the Collins Gallery comes to an end in May 2012. The University is actively looking at how the Collins Gallery might be sustained beyond then.”

Glasgow-born Wyllie, who has lived in Inverclyde since the 1960s, is most famous for his Straw Locomotive and Paper Boat, both of which had their origins in the demise of Glasgow’s industrial might.

When it was berthed beneath the World Financial Center in New York in 1990, The Paper Boat created such a stir that it made the front page of the New York Times.

This exhibition will mark the start of a year of celebrations centred around the artist’s 90th birthday year. Comprising of original material drawn from the archive donated by Gourock-based Wyllie to the university, this unique collection includes letters, photographs, reviews and personal jottings about his well-known and lesser known projects.

Wyllie’s family also plan to lend previously unseen artefacts from his home in Gourock, such as early oil paintings by Wyllie from the 1950s and a still life by his mother, Harriet, who was a creative driving force in his early life.

Wyllie’s distinctive voice will also be heard during the course of the exhibition, which starts on April 7, 2012, in the form of extensive interviews with him carried out by the British Library in 2003/4 as part of its Artists Lives series. 

Wyllie is now in a care home in Greenock, although his house, described by his friend, the writer and filmmaker, Murray Grigor as ‘a work of art in itself’ is in constant use as a base for the family’s activities relating to his work. 

A group, The Friends of George Wyllie, has been set up by his daughter Louise to protect and promote his work. Friends include the artist’s grandaughter Jennifer, Murray Grigor, the sculptor Kenny Munro, BBC Scotland arts producer Andrew Lockyer and RIAS Secretary & Treasurer, Neil Baxter.

Collins Gallery curator, Laura Hamilton, said it was ‘fitting’ that the 39-year-old gallery would close ‘with an exhibition celebrating the work of George Wyllie’. “This was the gallery which gave him his first major exhibition and the University’s best known and best loved public artwork is undoubtedly George’s Monument to Maternity, which stands on the site of the former Rottonrow Maternity Hospital,” she explained.

Hamilton has worked with Wyllie closely over the years. The last major exhibition featuring his work, The Cosmic Voyage, was held at the Collins in 2005. 

Wyllie’s daughter, Louise, told The Herald: “It’s great we are able to launch our Big Birthday year for my father with this exhibition at the Collins, with which he has had such a long association.

“We’re excited about the prospect of some typically quirky George Wyllie happenings over the course of next year, which we’re working hard on that at the moment.”

The University of Strathclyde spokesman added: “George Wyllie is a pivotal figure in the visual arts. The University is proud to be associated with the celebrations of his enormous achievement.”

George Wyllie's Monument to Maternity on the site of the former Rottenrow Maternity Hospital in Glasgow. This was commissioned by Strathclyde University. George holds an honorary doctorate from the university

Detail: Onward the Risorgimento of the Great George* (Wyllie...)