1. 162 Homes & Interiors Scotland Homes & Interiors Scotland 163
I
f you’re in Glasgow this April you may find
yourself considering the sentiment behind
Alasdair Gray’s novel Lanark: if a city hasn’t
been used by an artist, not even the inhabitants
live there imaginatively. That is certainly not
the case here. Over 18 days in April, vacant buildings,
alleys and even skating rinks will become temporary
spaces for contemporary art as more than 200 local
and interna­tional artists show their work across 57
sites, providing plenty of evidence that Glasgow’s
inhabitants are indeed a vividly imaginative bunch.
The artists are part of the biennial Glasgow Inter­na­
tional (GI), which has been quietly building momen­
tum in recent years. Visitor numbers topped 201,000
in 2014, and this year’s programme is already looking
bigger and bolder. It is focused on the rejuvenation
of the kind of vacant post-industrial spaces that are
increasingly evident in many cities. Usually when the
global spotlight shines down on a large cultural event,
the reaction from officialdom is to try to show the
city’s best side – its great museums, thriving shopping
districts, impressive architecture – and divert attention
away from the gap sites and abandoned buildings
that signify the loss of once-thriving industries. But
Glasgow’s success as a culturally astute city comes in
part from its dualities and contradictions, and those
empty spaces instead provoke the imagination to view
defunct industrial spaces as sites for experimentation
for an increasingly diverse artistic milieu.
An integral feature of every GI festival has v
The biennial art festival is opening up the city’s forgotten spaces as
emerging and established artists show their work in unusual sites
Words Rhona Warwick Paterson
ART
Glasgow International
[Opposite page] Claire Barclay
represented Scotland at the
Venice Biennale in 2003 and
will be showing at the Kelvin
Hall. [This page, left] Steven
Grainger’s intriguing work can
be seen at Sculpture & Design
in Maryhill. He will be creating
new work for GI. [Above and
top] Steff Norwood is one of six
artists who will be showing at
the Arches in Cleland Lane
Water Tower, 2014, Steven Grainger.
Image by Alan Dimmick courtesy of the artist
Unbound, 2013, Claire Barclay. Image by Annette Kradisch courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery
Crown, 2015, Steff Norwood
Oxy, 2015, Steff Norwood. Images by Ruth Clark
courtesy of the artist and Patricia Fleming Projects

2. been Open Glasgow, which shows work by emerging
Glasgow-based artists conceived specifically for the
city. These artists generate many of GI’s exhibitions,
perfor­mances and events, as well as much of the joyful,
anarchic energy that fills the city for two weeks.
Dan Miller is one such Open Glasgow artist taking
the post-industrial theme as a jumping-off point for
both the site and the themes of his exhibition. The
walls of his city-centre studio are lined with recent
paintings, prints and drawings. Huge blank canvases
primed and ready for action rest against another wall,
while a nest of computer cables and a laptop suggest
another, less analogue medium. Miller is both an artist
and a curator for GI, pulling together five other artists
to exhibit work in several of the abandoned railway
arches in Cleland Lane adjacent to the Citizens Theatre.
Oersted, the title of the exhibition, is named after the
Danish chemist who first produced aluminium in 1825
and is directly linked to the industrial legacy of these
arches. Steff Norwood, one of the artists taking part,
remembers an illegal aluminium smelt operating there
in the 1970s. Revisiting this site has allowed Norwood
to respond both materially and subjectively where such
sensitivities to site may elude others.
Felix Welch, meanwhile, recognises that his exhibi­
tion site, SWG3, has allowed him the opportunity to
create work on a much larger scale than usual. The
sculptor, a recent graduate who is contributing to GI
for the first time, has been galvanised by the possibi­
lities. “I wouldn’t say that our show is site-specific,
but our ideas have been influenced by the size of the
warehouse-type space, both in the sense of creating
work that fills the space, and in a juxtaposition with the
run-down interior architecture,” he explains.
It’s not always easy to get your hands on a space.
One artist, Steven Grainger, was continually thwarted
as he searched for somewhere to host his group show:
“Despite approaching almost every Council depart­
ment I could find, even empty property owned by the
city was out of bounds.” Typically, a suitable space
eventually came not from the official hosts of the
festival but from Glasgow’s famously close-knit
Homes & Interiors Scotland 165164 Homes & Interiors Scotland
ART
v
[Above and below] Tessa Lynch, whose installations can be seen at the Gallery of Modern Art, has
been inspired the building she is exhibiting in. [Opposite, top and bottom left] These two pieces
are by Dan Miller, who is both an artist and a curator for Glasgow International; a piece by recent
graduate Felix Welch, who will be showing at SWG3, close to the Riverside MuseumCafé Concrete, 2014, Tessa Lynch
Raising, 2014, Tessa Lynch. Images courtesy of the artist
Standing Wave, 2015, Felix Welch. Image courtesy of the artistComposition in Three Parts, 2010, Dan Miller. Images courtesy of the artist
Maybe things are better downstream, 2015, Dan Miller

3. 166 Homes & Interiors Scotland
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community of artists. “Sculpture and Design, the fabrication
company that produces artworks and architectural instal­
lations, and the artist Martin Boyce who has a spillover
studio in the firm’s premises, very generously offered to host
our show. Exhibiting in what is usually a workshop situation
is a perfect fit, as all the artists in the show are real hands-
on makers, either with paint or sculptural materials. It’s
amazing to have the support of a network of artists – which
is why so many of us are still here in this city.”
Other emerging GI artists are specifically seeking out
spaces that align to their broader practice. Marion Ferguson
has chosen to show her recent atmospheric prints in a
tenement flat. “Showing in a domestic setting has been
crucial to the development of the work,” she says.
Another artist whose exhibition site is influencing her
thinking is Tessa Lynch, who has a solo exhibition at the
Gallery of Modern Art: “As an artist who is influenced a lot
by site, this has really fed into my sculptural processes and
ideas,” she says. “My exhibition is looking into ideas around
the commute and the emotional impact of the city day to
day, so I have thought a lot about GoMA as a place of work
and have become really interested in the way large public
buildings are maintained – for example, how the steps of
GoMA are pressure-washed, mimicking the natural process
of rain, but equally eroding the surface of the building.”
What is behind Glasgow’s enviable – and internationally
acclaimed – reputation for visual art is a question that has
preoccupied many curators, artists and academics recently.
The city’s size, its distance from the art market, the relatively
low cost of renting a studio, the high quality of art education,
even the weather have been suggested as factors. Where
opinion is unanimous, though, is that Glasgow’s art scene
has over time created its own distinct culture of generosity.
Artists here are a friendly bunch. They exchange ideas, they
lend each other equipment, they start bands, they knock
on each other’s studio doors with a coffee, they endure
failures together, they put on exhibitions with no budget and
invigilate it together with no heating.
The glue in all of this is, of course, conversation. So for
these two weeks in April, allow yourself to be immersed in
a city as imagined by its artists, open your eyes to its unseen
spaces and, above all, spark up a conversation with an artist
– who knows where it will take you. �
8 to 25 April, glasgowinternational.org
[Above] Three pieces by Marion Ferguson, who has just completed a
residency at Hospitalfield. Her work questions preconceived notions of
landscape and its historical concepts. Her show entitled ‘-scape’ can be seen
at 1 Royal Terrace, not far from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
There-not There 1, 2014, Marion Ferguson
There-not There 3, 2014. Marion Ferguson
Further, 2014, Marion Ferguson. Images courtesy of the artist