GSA Video Archive

The GSA Video Archive is now live and comprehensive and can be found using the link below.

All Friday Event lectures, Architecture lectures and other public events can be viewed at your leisure.

http://www.gsaevents.com/videoarchive

Review of Live your questions now by Magdalen Chua

By Magdalen Chua

Live your questions now is a survey exhibition of artists over 60 years old at the Mackintosh Museum of The Glasgow School of Art. The title is taken from a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, on responding to the uncertainties of life by living out one’s questions, opening the possibility of living one’s way into the answer. Within the exhibition, several artists reflect on the intersections between art and life through the way the body, metaphorically and physically, is experienced and located in space.

Sam Ainsley, (Left) Untitled, 2011, dimensions variable; (Right top) The darkened splinterecho brainstream tide..., 2011, acrylic paint and print on canvas, 102 x 102 x 7cm; (Right bottom) Where there are hopes, there will always be fear, 2011, acrylic paint and print on canvas, 102 x 102 x 7cm; courtesy of Mackintosh Museum

Sam Ainsley’s (b. 1950, lives and works in Glasgow) works convey the relationship of the body to larger spatial contexts, in ways that express the psychological state. Against the corner of the gallery, Untitled comprises two outlines of Scotland with a successive sequence of word associations, such as “insecurity, knowing, disbelief, belief, love…” written around the perimeter. Viewed from a distance, the outlines appear as lungs of the body with the words as capillaries, making the emotions expressed by the words as the lifeline that courses through the country.

Lygia Pape, Tteia 1.A, 2011, gold thread, copper nails, 314cm x 321cm; courtesy of Mackintosh Museum

In the other corner of the gallery, the viewer’s body becomes the medium of experience between material and space in Tteia, or web, by Lygia Pape (Brazil, b.1927, d.2004). Assembled from a set of instructions, gold thread is strung to form a fluid and seamless structure that wraps, compresses yet also enlivens the spaces within and around. Pape was part of the Concrete movement and its reaction, Neo-Concretism, that sought to integrate a work within space as a reflection of how art functions in life, in way that opened the role for the viewer’s physical interaction and interpretation.

Helena Almeida, (Left) BAÑADA EN LÁGRIMAS #14, 2009, framed black and white photograph, 175 X 114.4 X 4.7 cm, (Centre) BAÑADA EN LÁGRIMAS #13, 2009, framed black and white photograph, 175 X 114.4 X 4.7 cm, (Right) Untitled, 2010, video, b&w, sound, 18', edition of 5; courtesy of Mackintosh Museum

This Neo-Concretist approach towards art-making influenced Helena Almeida (Portugal, b.1934), whose photography and video works have experimented with means to extend elements, from colour or the body, out of a confined space. Two photographs from the series BAÑADA EN LÁGRIMAS, or bathed in tears, are of Almeida encountering her reflection in a pool of water on the ground. The photographed action enlarges the space and view above Almeida, as a window to the world beyond the physical limits of the frame.

Against the backdrop of a rising number of survey shows of young contemporary artists, Live your questions now presents artists whose lives, as seen through their practice across decades, bear out philosophical challenges through persistent inquiry. The exhibition runs till 1 October 2011, and also includes works by Alasdair Gray, Joan Jonas, Ana Jotta, Michael Kidner and Běla Kolářová.

Live your questions now

Preview: Thursday 14 July, 6-8pm
15 July – 1 Oct 2011
Mackintosh Museum, The Glasgow School of Art

Sam Ainsley
Helena Almeida
Alasdair Gray
Joan Jonas
Ana Jotta
Michael Kidner
Běla Kolářová
Lygia Pape

With the focus of survey shows predominantly on emergent artists, what can we learn from a later generation of contemporary visual artists? ‘Live Your Questions Now’ is a survey exhibition of Scottish, UK and international contemporary artists over 60 years old.

The exhibition title is inspired by a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Letters to a young poet’ (1934):

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”


Mackintosh Museum
The Glasgow School of Art
167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G3 6RQ

Opening hours: Mon–Fri 10.30am–4.30pm, Saturday 10am-2pm, Sunday closed
Free admission to gallery

www.gsaevents.com
www.gsa.ac.uk/exhibitions

Image credit: Helena Almeida, ‘Untitled’ (2010), video, b&w, sound, 18’, edition of 5. Courtesy the artist.

Living Today exhibition review

A review of Living Today exhibition at Glasgow School of Art featuring work by David Harding

Preview of Living Today exhibition at Mackintosh Museum, GSA

Living Today

With information from The George Orwell Archive

Matei Bejenaru, Ross Birrell, Francis Cape, David Harding, Ângela Ferreira, Eva Merz

Preview: Friday 14 Jan 6-8pm

15 January – 5 March 2011

This group exhibition presents artists whose work explores aspects of the society they live in – politics, culture, economy, living conditions and social structures.

Included are copies of information from the Orwell Archive, University College of London, relating to George Orwell’s 1937 publication “The Road To Wigan Pier” which, commissioned by Victor Gollancz and published by the Left Book Club, documented poverty in the north east of England before the Second World War.

Supported by Glasgow Life

With thanks to Orwell Archive, UCL Special Collections

Image: George Orwell’s National Union of Journalists Card. Orwell Archive, UCL Special Collections.

Mackintosh Museum, The Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G3 6RQ, Scotland, UK

Opening Hours: Mon–Fri: 10:30am–4:30pm, Saturday: 10:00am–2:00pm
Sunday: Closed

T: +44 (0)141 353 4500
E: exhibitions@gsa.ac.uk  www.gsa.ac.uk/exhibitions www.gsaevents.com

The Glasgow School of Art is a charity registered in Scotland, charity number SC012490

Parabolas Del Agua - An Exhibition of Contemporary Cuban Art

On Friday night David went along to the opening of 'Parabolas Del Agua - An Exhibition of Contemporary Cuban Art' at the Wasps Hanson Street Project Space. The exhibition runs until 14th August.

The exhibition is the culmination of the 3 artists residency in Glasgow.

This project has been organised by Tengo Frio, a group of Students at Glasgow School of Art and Goldsmiths in London. The Directors of Tengo Frio, Maria Paz Gardiazabal and Florrie James, have organised the exhibition in response to their exchange at the artschool in Havana.

The exhibition, Parabolas Del Agua is the first exhibition and artists residency of Cuban artists to take place in Glasgow. It has been funded by the Glasgow City Council Twinning Department and reinforces old links between the two cities and celebrates our shared heritage. The project has also been awarded money from the Henry Moore Foundation.

The artists Lester Alvarez Meno, Elizabeth Cervino and Jose Eduardo Yaque work with mixed media, making paintings, sculptures, installations and film. As Alvarez Meno says, their work focusses on the pretentious interest of men in nature and the ultimate indifference of the latter to express their situation as Cuban artists.

The exhibition will open a new conversation about making art within the two cultures of Cuba and Scotland. As well as capturing the distinct energy of the artists in Glasgow, Tengo Frio hope to strengthen the infrastructure of contemporary visual art in Havana. It is Tengo Frio's aim to provide a free space for these artists to exhibit their work outside of commercial and governmental constraints.

For more information please visit

http://www.waspsstudios.org.uk/news/latest-news/parabolas-del-agua-an-exhibition-of-contemporary-cuban-art/

or contact tengofrioart@gmail.com

GSA MFA Interim Exhibition

On Friday Sam attended the preview of the MFA Interim Exhibition at Glasgow School of Art.

The show runs until 22 May.

Steven Campbell

Sandy is involved in the The Steven Campbell Trust Fund Raising Event



Sandy Moffat and John Byrne in discussion about Steven Campbell



The Steven Campbell Trust Fund Raising Event
Saturday 24 April in the Vic Bar
Glasgow School of Art

David likes a good party

After many years of service at Glasgow School of Art, Ray MacKenzie retired from the Historical and Critical Studies department. David was highly involved in organising a day not to be forgotten and an event that would allow many staff and students throughout Ray's lecturing years to bid a fond farewell to the legend himself. RAYDAY took place last Saturday, with a tour around some of Ray's favourite places in Glasgow (and numerous drinking establishments!).



Tonight, David is to chair the annual Burns Night supper at Glasgow School of Art.