Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, offers her thoughts on the work of Carol Bove and her exhibition ‘The Foamy Saliva of a Horse’ at The Common Guild.

Places are free but limited. To book, call +44 (0)141 428 3022 or email: info@thecommonguild.org.uk

Scotland + Venice 2013 is an exhibition of new works by Corin Sworn, Duncan Campbell and Hayley Tompkins, three of the most consistently interesting artists working in Scotland today, presented by The Common Guild in the Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina).

Corin Sworn creates installations that explore the ways objects can circulate stories and histories. Often combining images with spoken narrative, her work examines the cultural and personal significance attributed to things and how they in turn narrate us as social subjects.

Duncan Campbell produces films that look at representations of the people and events at the heart of very particular histories. Combining archive material with his own footage, his work questions the authority, integrity and intentions of the information presented.

Hayley Tompkins makes painted objects that transform familiar, commonplace things – such as knives, hammers, mobile phones or furniture. Her work articulates the relationship between the form, feel and function of an object.

Scotland + Venice is a partnership between Creative Scotland, British Council Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Scotland + Venice 2013 is presented by The Common Guild, Glasgow, where the artists will re-present their work in the summer of 2014.

Palazzo Pisani (S. Marina) Calle de le Erbe, Cannaregio 6103
Nearest vaporetto: Rialto or S. Zaccaria or Fondamente Nove
Hours of Opening Tuesday – Sunday 10am to 6pm Free entry

www.scotlandandvenice.com

Presenting objects and artefacts in arrangements that heighten the symbolic meaning and relationship between them, Bove’s meticulous assemblages bring to the fore the cultural, spiritual, mystical and even psychological associations that adhere to objects through time.

This exhibition at The Common Guild comprises a re-arrangement of her highly acclaimed installation ‘The Foamy Saliva of a Horse’ (2011), which was presented at the 54th Venice Biennale. Featuring a collection of found and hand-made objects, such as a piece of driftwood suspended in a polished bronze frame, the installation brings together seemingly random (and even contradictory) objects that, while natural in origin, call to mind the artifice of cultural value and meaning.

This is the first public exhibition of Bove’s work in the UK. It follows her participation in several important international exhibitions including the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, in which she realised her first outdoor work.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an Exhibition Talk by Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute on Saturday 8 June and a Roundtable Conversation on Thursday 27 June with contributions from Glasgow-based artists Lorna Macintyre and Neil Clements. Places are free but limited. To book, call +44 (0)141 428 3022 or email: info@thecommonguild.org.uk

A limited edition publication, featuring commissioned texts and images of the exhibition, will be released later in the year.

Exhibition open: Tuesday – Saturday 12noon – 5pm, until 7pm on Thursday.

Artist Carol Bove will present a lecture as part of The Glasgow Schoool of Art’s ‘Friday Event’ series. The series has been running since the early 1990s and brings major international speakers including artists, architects, designers, historians, and cultural theorists to Glasgow, opening debate to a diverse audience from across the city.

For this event, Carol will provide an overview of recent work and introduce her upcoming exhibition ‘The Foamy Saliva of Horse’, which opens at The Common Guild on Saturday 20 April.

Carol Bove (b. 1971, lives in New York) is known for her simple yet intricate assemblages of found and made objects. Her practice often incorporates forms that reference particular moments in art history alongside materials that evoke personal associations and social experiences.

The exhibition at The Common Guild will be the first public presentation of her work in the UK. It follows her participation in several important international exhibitions including the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, in which she realised her first outdoor work.

The event is free and no booking is required. For more information please see: http://www.gsa.ac.uk/life/gsa-events/future/

We are delighted to announce a series of ‘Primers’ to accompany ‘Scotland + Venice 2013′. The talks offer a chance to hear from the three artists participating in the exhibition: Duncan Campbell, Corin Sworn and Hayley Tompkins.

The ‘Primers’ were presented in collaboration with the University of Glasgow and were introduced by Dr. Dominic Paterson.

Hayley Tompkins’s talk took place on 5 February.
To watch a recording of this talk on Vimeo please click here.

Corin Sworn’s talk took place on 5 March.
To watch a recording of this talk on Vimeo please click here.

Duncan Campbell’s talk took place on 16 April.
To watch a recording of this talk on Vimeo please click here.

An Open event hosted by The Common Guild with Artangel and BBC Radio 4 for artists to hear about open invitation for artists to come forward with ground-breaking project proposals which will transform the UK’s cultural landscape.

If you’re a visual artist, filmmaker, writer, composer, theatre maker, choreographer, producer or an artist working in the digital space, this is your opportunity to hear about the opportunities Open offers, meet with Artangel’s Co-Director Michael Morris, Artangel Producer Rachel Anderson and artist Ruth Ewan and start to think about what Open could mean to you.

Drinks will be provided and there will be a chance to talk informally with ourselves and the Artangel team after an initial presentation and discussion.

The talk will take place at Goethe-Institut Glasgow, 3 Park Circus, Glasgow, G3 6AX.

This event is now fully booked.

A recording of the London event will be posted online in due course.

For more information about Open please visit artangel.org.uk/open

Open is commissioned by Artangel in association with BBC Radio 4 and Arts Council England.

‘The Foamy Saliva of a Horse’

Press ReleaseDownload the press relase for Carol Bove ‘The Foamy Saliva of a Horse’ here.

11 February 2013

Press Release

Please join us for the launch of Ugo Rondinone’s new limited edition publication, produced to accompany his exhibition ‘primitive’ at The Common Guild. The publication is priced £5 and features texts by Katrina Brown, Director of The Common Guild, and artist Martin Boyce.

The publication will be available to purchase from Aye Aye Books, and their online shop, from December.

Aye Aye Books, Glasgow’s only specialist contemporary art bookshop, is open Wed – Sat, 11am – 6pm and is located in the foyer of CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD.

Aye-Aye Books has all you need to keep up to date with current developments in art, and much more. Books from independent publishers around the world sit alongside an unrivalled selection of publications by and about today’s Scottish artists, limited edition artists’ books, cultural and critical theory, fiction and poetry, magazines and journals, radical books, sound art, music, and world cinema DVDs.

Roundtable Conversations offer an opportunity to develop various lines of enquiry prompted by exhibitions at The Common Guild. This event will focus on Ugo Rondinone’s exhibition ‘primitive’ and includes contributions from artist Niall MacDonald, Director of Outset Scotland, Kirstie Skinner, and independent researcher and writer, Rhona Warwick, who has a formal background in sculpture.

Places are free but limited.
To book, call +44 (0)141 428 3022 or email: info@thecommonguild.org.uk

Lucy Askew, Senior Curator (Exhibitions) at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art offers her thoughts on the work of Ugo Rondinone and his exhibition ‘primitive’ at The Common Guild.

To listen to an audio recording of this talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Download the Commentary text by Lucy Askew here.

Download the press release for Ugo Rondinone ‘primitive‘ here.

‘primitive’ is the first exhibition in Scotland of the work of the remarkable Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.

Featuring a group of recent works in a new and precisely conceived installation, the exhibition includes a large group of bronze bird sculptures, filling the building with an almost threatening persistence. Imposing in number if not in scale, these modest little birds, so clearly and simply hand-made, are named after vast natural phenomena: from ‘the sun’ and ‘the moon’ to ‘the universe’ and ‘the atmosphere’ – referencing the natural world beyond the gallery.

Rondinone first came to international attention in the early 1990s with installations that involved a striking diversity of forms. His exhibitions might include India ink landscapes in the Romantic tradition, or mesmerising target paintings that recall the trance-inducing images of 1960s psychædelia. He combines works with an up-beat, pop sensibility with others that reflect a mood of longing and disconnection, from photographs of a man and a woman who never meet to melancholy images of clowns slumped on floors. His works often have a strong sense of time being suspended, and reflect on the conflict between reality and a world of mirrors, dreams and artifice.

Exhibition open Tuesday – Saturday 12noon–5pm, until 7pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and by appointment.

Creative Scotland and its partners have appointed The Common Guild as curators for the Scotland + Venice 2013 presentation.

The Venice Biennale is the largest and most prestigious visual arts exhibition in the world. This will be the sixth presentation from Scotland and Venice, a partnership between Creative Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland and British Council Scotland. The 2013 Biennale will be the 55th International Art Exhibition.

The Common Guild is a visual arts organisation based in Glasgow. It was established in 2006 and presents a dynamic, international programme of contemporary visual art projects, exhibitions, and events.

The Common Guild will present projects by three of Scotland’s most compelling and consistently interesting artists: Duncan Campbell, Hayley Tompkins and Corin Sworn. The exhibition will be presented in the Palazzo Pisani, Venice from June to November 2013.

Previous Scotland + Venice presentations have included Karla Black (curated by the Fruitmarket Gallery) in 2011 and Martin Boyce (curated by Dundee Contemporary Arts) in 2009. The 2013 project will mark 10 years since Scotland’s first participation, in an exhibition that included Claire Barclay, Jim Lambie and Simon Starling.

Amanda Catto, Chair of Scotland and Venice Partnership and Portfolio Manager for Visual Arts at Creative Scotland said:

‘The Scotland and Venice partnership is delighted to announce its plans for the 2013 exhibition.

‘Since its establishment ten years ago the Scotland and Venice project has emerged as a significant international platform, promoting artists at the highest level internationally and building Scotland’s reputation as a centre of excellence in and for the visual arts.

‘The exhibition will showcase the vision, imagination and skill of the artists selected and we are looking forward to working in partnership with The Common Guild, who bring their significant knowledge and expertise to the project.’

Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said:

“Scotland is a creative and innovative nation, boasting a wealth of artistic talent. The Venice Biennale, as the largest arts festival in the world, is an ideal platform to showcase our talent to a global audience.

“I am sure that the Scottish presence in 2013 will build on the tremendous success of previous years, which saw exhibitions from Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Boyce and nominee Karla Black.”

Katrina Brown, Director of The Common Guild:

“It is remarkable to think of all that has happened with contemporary art in Scotland since the first participation in the Venice Biennale back in 2003. This project will continue to foreground our artists and the wealth and breadth of talent here in a hugely significant international arena. We are very much looking forward to working with Duncan, Hayley and Corin in this context.”

Scotland + Venice 2013: artists

Duncan Campbell is known for his film works that blend archive, documentary material with fictional, imaginary elements. His films, which have been described as “slippery biopics”, have focused on often visionary protagonists, such as car-maker John DeLorean (‘Make it New John’, 2009) or Irish political activist Bernadette Devlin (‘Bernadette’, 2008).
He welcomed his inclusion in the project and added:
“I am extremely pleased to be representing Scotland at Venice next year. For an artist, the biennale represents a unique opportunity: to make work that has currency as well as being part of the general hoopla. I am excited by this challenge. I am grateful to the Common Guild for the compliment they have paid me.”

Corin Sworn creates atmospheric installations that weave fiction and history through film and objects. She is currently artist-in-residence at St.John’s College, Oxford, in association with the Ruskin School.
Sworn said of her participation in the project:
“The prospect of working in Venice feels both formidable and thrilling and I look forward to seeing what work I can make for this dramatic and intriguing atmosphere.”

Hayley Tompkins makes intensely delicate paintings and painted objects that she describes as being sampled from the world as we know it. She was short-listed for the 2004 Becks Futures Prize.
Tompkins said:
“I am delighted to exhibit at next year’s Venice Biennale, and to be working with The Common Guild. I look forward to imagining a new work and seeing it installed in such unique and historic surroundings, a mysterious place like Venice. It’s a wonderful opportunity for any artist.”

The 2013 exhibition continues The Common Guild’s commitment to dynamic internationalism, and builds on the organisation’s reputation for presenting artists’ work in interesting and engaging ways through world-class contemporary art experiences and discussions. It will involve new works by the three artists in diverse forms and materials.

Roundtable Conversations offer an opportunity to develop various lines of enquiry prompted by exhibitions at The Common Guild. This event will focus on Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition ‘A New Installation, with Works from the Arts Council Collection’ and includes contributions from writer and critic Lauren Dyer Amazeen and artist Paul Knight.

Sophie O’Brien, Senior Curator of Exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery offers her thoughts on the work of Wolfgang Tillmans and his exhibition ‘A New Installation, with Works from the Arts Council Collection’ at The Common Guild.

To listen to an audio recording of this talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Download the Commentary text by Sophie O’Brien here.

Ruth Ewan talks about her current project ‘The Glasgow Schools’ within the context of recent work.

To listen to an audio recording of this talk on Vimeo, please click here.

A group of people congregate in a studio, they talk about themselves and exchange stories. Individual identities become discernible and then merge with one another. Daylight mixes with artificial light. Exercise routines shift into choreographed movement. Everyday life mixes with the imaginary. Commissioned by ACCA, How to Feel (2011) is a feature length video work that investigates the shifting boundaries between self and other. Placing emphasis on the fragmentary nature of contemporary subjectivity, this work explores the conflicts and tensions that underscore our everyday interactions with others. Combining methodologies from the fields of theatre, film, dance and visual art, How to Feel is the result of David Rosetzky’s collaboration with choreographer Stephanie Lake, actors Elizabeth Nabben, Nicole Nabout, Stephen Phillips, John Shrimpton, Yesse Spence and Miles Szanto, dramaturg Margaret Cameron and sound designer/composer J. David Franzke.

David Rosetzky (born 1970, Melbourne, Australia) creates skillfully crafted video portraits in which identity is intimately observed. With an extensive exhibition history both in Australia and overseas, Rosetzky was founding member of the influential artist-run space 1st Floor and one of the first local artists to embrace the aesthetic potential of video in the contemporary art context.

Rosetzky’s 2009 video portrait of Cate Blanchett was selected to be exhibited in The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video at the International Centre for Photography in New York and Open Air: Portrait in Landscape, at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. He has exhibited in museum exhibitions in Canada, Lithuania, Japan, Berlin and Wellington and awarded the Anne Landa Art Award from the AGNSW in 2005. He has been Artist in Residence at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland and at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand.

Recent solo projects include ‘How to Feel’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2011), ‘Nothing like this’, Kings ARI, Melbourne (2007), ‘Self Defence’, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (2005), ‘Commune’, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne (2003) and ‘Custom Made’, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2000)

David Rosetzky is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, www.suttongallery.com.au

To download The Green Text audio file, click on the Soundcloud download link below. You can then put this file onto your personal mp3 player.

Laresa Kosloff and Andy Thomson will present a Glaswegian version of The Green Text at the Partickhill Bowling Club on Friday 27th April 2012. The artists have produced a scripted commentary between two imaginary bowling “experts”, Dr. Lindsey Fisher-Price (played by Kari Corbett) and Alistair McLeod (played by David Mullen). The characters commentate a fictional game of lawn bowls whilst comically digressing through a range of topics, from ‘Post Colonialism’ to the subject of ‘boredom’. Audience members will be invited to listen to this commentary on headphones whilst watching a live tournament of lawn bowls.

Laresa Kosloff (born 1974, Melbourne, Australia) makes performative videos, Super 8 films, hand drawn animations, sculpture, installations and live performance works. Her practice examines various representational strategies, each one linked by an interest in the body and its agency within the everyday. She completed a PhD at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, in 2010.

Recent solo projects include ‘Office skate’, commissioned by ACCA, public projection at the Melbourne City Square (2011), ‘Sensible world’, curated by Reuben Keehan, Artspace, Sydney (2009), ‘Relative straightness’, Neon Parc gallery, Melbourne, ‘Jogathon’, Conical Inc. Melbourne, ‘Solidarity for a metaphysic’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art at Mirka Tolarno, Melbourne (all 2008) and ‘New Diagonal’, Ocular Lab, Melbourne (2007).

http://www.laresakosloff.com

Andy Thomson (born 1952,Wiltshire UK) makes collaborative works and is interested in how art can be made and presented in social contexts. Andy studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, and currently lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand.

Recent collaborative projects include ‘Spin Theory’ with Daniel von Sturmer at Govett Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, curated by Tyler Cann, Len Lye curator at large (2012), ‘The Weak Force’ at Anna Leonowens Gallery, at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, with collaborating team of Paul Cullen, Bruce Barber, Kim Morgan, Laresa Kosloff and Andrew Burton, and ‘The Green Text’ with Laresa Kosloff, Natimuk Lawn Bowling Club, commissioned by Australian Centre of Contemporary Art and curated by Hannah Mathews (both 2011).

uft-gravity.com

Marco Fusinato occupies Glasgow’s SWG3, for an all-day noise performance that extends the traditional language of the guitar to ‘distressed oblivion…unleashing a tsunami of ecstatic free noise’.

Marco Fusinato (born 1964, Melbourne, Australia) has a long history with both visual arts and experimental music, harnessing a chaotic range of forces and collapsing them into singular pulses of contained energy. Through wide ranging forms of work in gallery contexts and performances, Fusinato foregrounds moments of disruption and impact in which lie the possibility of a shift in perception or change in the course of events.

Fusinato’s work has been included in such exhibitions as ‘Sonic Youth etc. – Sensational Fix’, CA2M, Madrid, 2010, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, and The Museum of Malmo, Sweden, 2009; ‘Still Vast Reserves’, Magazzino d’arte Moderna, Rome, 2009; ‘NEW 09′, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2009; Lo Sguardo di Giano’, American Academy in Rome, 2009; ‘Underplayed: A Mix-Tape of Music-based Videos’, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 2006; ‘The Unquiet World’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2006; ‘Sensational: Sight and Sound Installations’, Auckland Art Gallery, 2005; ‘ART>MUSIC: Rock, Pop, Techno’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2001; and Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1998.

Forthcoming projects include ‘Parallel Collisions’, The Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art; ‘The Imminence of Poetics’, 30th Sao Paulo Biennale; ISCP Residency in NYC and a new solo LP, L’Origine/Tema (Penultimate Press, London) (all 2012).

Marco Fusinato is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery www.annaschwartzgallery.com / www.marcofusinato.com

Sunday 22 April
2-4pm
Magic for Socialism
To celebrate the opening of The Glasgow Schools there will be performances by Socialist Magician, Ian Saville, and a choir of former Socialist Sunday School students led by Charlotte Brown.
Free. All ages welcome.

Sunday 29 April
2-4pm
A Select History of Socialist Sunday Schools
Socialist, writer, activist and historian Roger Huddle and historian, activist and former Socialist Sunday School student Dr Fred Reid will give a historical and personal account of the Socialist Sunday School movement.

To listen to an audio recording of this event on Vimeo, please click here.

Sunday 6 May
2-4pm
A Partial History of the Proletarian Sunday Schools
A one-off performance by actor Tam Dean Burn inspired by the life of Tom Anderson, founder of Glasgow’s Proletarian Sunday School, followed by a presentation on the history of Anderson and the School by Jane Rosen, a social historian and specialist in working class children’s literature.
Free. All ages welcome but recommended for over 16s.

To listen to an audio recording of this event on Vimeo, please click here.

21st April 2012
Press ReleaseDownload the press release for Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition ‘A New Installation, with Works from the Arts Council Collection’ here.

Marco Fusinato, Bianca Hester, Laresa Kosloff, Joshua Petherick and
David Rosetzky. Various Glasgow locations.

20th April 2012

Press ReleaseDownload the press release for ‘Together Towards 2014′ here

For Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art The Common Guild presents five new projects by Melbourne-based artists in collaboration with the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne.

Projects include:

An all-day noise performance by Marco Fusinato at SWG3 on Eastvale Place on Wednesday 25th April;

A series of city-wide performances and actions by Bianca Hester throughout the duration of the Festival, culminating in a performance on the top floor of a city centre car park on Sunday 29th April;

An audio performance at Partickhill Lawn Bowling Club on Partickhill Road by Laresa Kosloff in collaboration with Andy Thomson on Friday 27th April

An all-day screening of David Rosetzky’s film ‘How to Feel’ at The Goethe Institut on Park Circus on Saturday 28th April;

A series of posters on Glasgow’s Subway system by Joshua Petherick, on view between Monday 16th – Sunday 29th April.

Presented by The Common Guild as part of a major collaboration with ACCA, Melbourne for 2012 and 2014, coinciding with Glasgow’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games. Supported by Arts Victoria, Glasgow City Council and Creative Scotland.

For more information about Glasgow International please visit their website.

‘The Glasgow Schools’ at Scotland Street Museum

20th April 2012

Press Release

Download the press release for Ruth Ewan ‘The Glasgow Schools’ here

Featuring an important group of works acquired by the Arts Council Collection alongside a number of new works selected by the artist, this exhibition covers the characteristic range and diversity of imagery in Tillmans’ practice.

Ranging from intimate portraits, dense with emotional intensity, to vast monochromes, baring the traces of the physical process involved, Tillmans is known for both the range of subject and the varying scale of his photographs. Sometimes highly choreographed and other times completely spontaneous, Tillmans demonstrates a simultaneous understanding of the emotional relationship between the photographer and his subject and the objectivity of the photographic process.

“I love the piece of paper itself, this lush, crisp thing. A piece of photographic paper has its own elegance, how it bows when you have it hanging in one hand or in two and manipulate it, expose it to light – I guess it is quite a gestural thing.”

Tillmans is also known, perhaps unusually for a photographer, for the diversity in the presentation of his work – from his signature bulldog clips, map pins and sticky tape mounts to Plexiglass hoods and bespoke vitrines. Through this range of scale and format, object, whilst reminding the viewer of the temporality, and fragility, of the image that they see.

Frequently referencing other genres, such as painting and sculpture, in both the content and the presentation of his work, Tillmans also explores the context of the photographic image, reminding the viewer of both its ubiquity and is uniqueness.

From 8 May – 23 June: Tuesday – Saturday 12 noon – 5 pm, until 7pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and by appointment.

We will be closed on Tuesday 5 June for the Jubilee bank holiday.

Bianca Hester will undertake a series of actions utilising made and found objects in various locations in Glasgow over a number of days. Actions will include a performance with steel hoops on the top floor of a city car park, holding aloft a cast copy of a meteorite in front of various architectural facades for very short periods of time, and negotiating with residents to open all their doors and windows at the same moment on a designated day. She will also invite people she meets to pin up an A4 poster up in their workplaces that reads only from the perspective of an observer situated on the surface of the earth does day and night occur.

To see when and where these are occurring and to track the project as it unfolds visit: http://uponthesurfaceoftheearth.blogspot.com.au/
The project will culminate in a performance on the top floor of Cambridge Street car park on Sunday 29th April, between 5-6pm.

Working across disciplines Hester fuses elements of performative practice and site-responsive engagement, with a strong sense of materiality, spatial and acoustic awareness. In a broad ranging scope including interventions, installations, events and publications, Hester brings people, structures and objects into an encounter with each other, giving sculpture a renewed social focus as one of its possibilities.

Bianca Hester (born 1975 Melbourne, Australia) is motivated by an exploration of the connection between space, materiality and embodiment. Her projects are informed by sculptural and architectural processes and oriented by an engagement with the unpredictable forces of matter and time. She works in response to specific material, social and spatial conditions and builds provisional constructions and open-ended situations, often involving collaborations, events, imagery and video. Alongside this practice she teaches, writes and generates publications.

Recent solo projects include ‘a world fully accessible by no living being’, Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture, Federation Square (winning entry), ‘big log jam,’ with Open Spatial Workshop, AEAF, Adelaide, (2011), ‘please leave these windows open overnight to enable the fans to draw in cool air during the early hours of the morning’, Helen Macpherson Smith Commission, commissioned by Juliana Engberg, curated by Charlote Day, ACCA, Melbourne (2010), ‘only from the perspective of a viewer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur’, The Narrows (2009), The West Brunswick Sculpture Triennial (with the OSW collective 2009), ‘fashioning discontinuities’, the Centre for Contemporary Photography (2009) and ‘projectprojects’, The Showroom in London (2008). The book titled ‘accommodating spaces, materials, projects, people, videos, actions, objects, thoughts: relatively’ was commissioned by The Narrows in 2009.

Bianca Hester recently completed a PhD by project in sculpture at RMIT. She was a founding member of CLUBSpropject inc (2002-2007), a member of OSW (2003 – ongoing) and co-ordinates the second year program in the department of Sculpture and Spatial Practice at VCA.

Bianca Hester is represented by Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne www.sarahscoutpresents.com / www.biancahester.net

Joshua Petherick will present a series of posters on Glasgow’s Subway system on view between Monday 16th – Sunday 29th April. A series of ambiguous ‘advertisement’ works, whose titles, all derived from Nadsat, the constructed teenage argot of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, will punctuate various sites throughout one of the world’s oldest underground systems, the Glasgow subway, a system often referred to by locals as The Clockwork Orange. Works are situation at Buchanan Street, Kelvinbridge, Kelvinhall, Partick, St Enoch and St George’s Cross stations.

Joshua Petherick (born 1979, Adelaide, Australia) melds modern technologies and a variety of media to create playful riddles, fictions and questions – each designed to engender a critical appraisal in the way we encounter and value things, pictures and words.

Recent solo projects include ‘Saratogian Bedding’, Croy Nielsen, Berlin, and ‘Simultaneous Solitudes’, Y3K Gallery, Melbourne (both 2011), ‘Joshua Petherick’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art at Mirka Tolarno, Melbourne and ‘Nom Abbamon’, Y3K Gallery, Melbourne (w. Christopher L.G. Hill) (both 2010), ‘Bootleg at The Manor’, Y3K Gallery, Melbourne, and ‘Austin & Petherick’, Neon Parc, Melbourne (w. Nick Austin) (both 2009). Upcoming projects include Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, CCP (Centre for Contemporary Photography), Melbourne (all 2012)

Joshua Petherick is represented by Croy Nielsen, Berlin, www.croynielsen.de / www.joshuapetherick.com

Mike Sperlinger, Assistant Director of LUX, offers his thoughts on the exhibition ‘How to Look at Everything’.

To listen to an audio recording of this talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Download the Commentary text by Mike Sperlinger here.

Roundtable Conversations offer an opportunity to develop various lines of enquiry prompted by exhibitions at The Common Guild. This event will focus on ‘How to Look at Everything’ and includes contributions from Kate Gray, Director of Collective, Edinburgh, writer and journalist Moira Jeffrey and artist Corin Sworn.

Simon Martin will be presenting his new film Louis Ghost Chair, commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, The Holburne Museum, Bath and Collective, Edinburgh, at Collective from 7 June – 22 July 2012.

Four Artists/ Four Works/ Four Weeks

3rd March 2012

Press ReleaseDownload the press release for ‘How to Look at Everything’ here

Four Artists / Four Works / Four Weeks

‘How to Look at Everything’ brings together a selection of outstanding film and video works by four international artists; Zbynek Baladrán, Simon Martin, Nick Relph and Falke Pisano. The exhibition presents a group of works that combine narrative structures with the documentary format, exploring the very nature of looking and understanding.

Through the cultural history of the twentieth century, each work considers the stories that can be told through a collection of images and objects, ranging from the documentary narrative to the subjective encounter, looking at the past and the present through a non-linear archaeological excavation.

Czech artist Zbynek Baladrán acts as an archaeologist of knowledge, unearthing images, fragments and narratives from his country’s past. His video Working Process, 2004, is made from a collection of archive film footage from 1957-88 edited into a work that tells a partial history of Czechoslovakia alongside the story of the film’s own making. The apparently random selection of footage and partially obscured subtitles provide fragments of a narrative, whilst suggesting a purposeful censorship or arbitrary filtration of history and time.

London-based British artist Simon Martin’s work reflects upon material culture. He is interested in how we understand ourselves through social structures, mythologies and collective memory evidenced in art objects, mass media and the built environment. Carlton, 2006, is a short film that offers a philosophical mediation upon the ‘Carlton’ cabinet, designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1981. The camera circles the object with reverence and curiosity while the hypnotic voice-over provides something between a historical narrative and a series of subjective reflections.

New York-based British artist Nick Relph’s work often deals with the representational problems of different media. His video Thre Stryppis Quhite Upon ane Blak Field, 2010, is a composite of blue, green and red projections, with superimposed documentaries on Ellsworth Kelly, Comme des Garçons’ founder Rei Kawakubo and the history of tartan. Seeing all three films simultaneously, the viewer seeks to find the relationship or shared meaning between them.

Berlin-based Dutch artist Falke Pisano’s work examines the relationship between our physical and theoretical understanding of objects and ideas. Through texts and spoken word she creates a densely woven web of subjective descriptions and reflections. In Chillida (Forms & Feelings), 2006, Pisano examines her relationship to a series of photographs taken by David Finn of sculptures by the Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. As she turns the pages of the photo book, she considers the relationship between the specific objects, their depiction, the experience of the photographer and her own emotional responses to the images.

Exhibition open
Tuesday – Saturday 12 noon – 5pm, until 7pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and by appointment.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a Roundtable Conversation on 22 March and an Exhibition Talk by Mike Sperlinger on 24 March.

To listen to an audio recording of Mike Sperlinger’s talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Detours Discussion is a one-day symposium about programme and place.

There are many contextual factors that can affect contemporary art programmes, from local politics and finance, through institutional history, to current cultural ambitions and geography. Whether in and for building-based, formal institutions, or in more porous situations including ‘public art’ commissioning, context plays a part in the making of a programme. Is it appropriate or relevant today to imagine that a programme can instill change in a given context? Or is an over-attention to context a constraint to creative programming?

Speakers:
Mike Crang, professor at Durham University with an interest in cultural geography.

Nina Möntmann, curator and professor at the Royal Institute of Art (KKH) in Stockholm, and editor of ‘Art and its Institutions’ (Black Dog Publishing) 2006.

Toby Paterson, artist, with an interest in architecture, which he deconstructs both materially and politically. Toby has also produced numerous commissions in the public realm.

Andrea Schlieker, freelance curator, lecturer and writer. Curator of British Art Show 6 and the Folkestone Triennial 2008 & 2011.

Simon Groom, Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Chaired by: Katrina Brown and Sue Brind

To listen to audio recordings from this event on Vimeo, please click here.

Read the blogs by David Butler and Nuno Sacramento on the PAR+RS website here.

Presented by The Common Guild and The Glasgow School of Art in association with PAR+RS

Supported by Creative Scotland

The Glasgow Schools is a project by artist Ruth Ewan. It maps out the city’s Proletarian, Socialist Sunday and Socialist Fellowship Schools, part of a network of alternative educational organisations that once spread across the UK, of which Glasgow was a particular centre. The schools explored a spectrum of left-wing ideologies with children and young adults, from the Marxist revolutionary zeal of Tom Anderson’s Proletarian Schools (1918 – c1939) to the Christian leaning ethics of the early Socialist Sunday Schools (1896 – 1965), which later evolved into the Socialist Fellowship (1965 – 1980).

The exhibition brings together, for the first time, archive material relating to the schools from a number of public and private collections. This is accompanied by an events programme of talks and discussion, song, performance and magic. Ewan presents a series of poster works, this artist’s pamphlet, and a new documentary, made using archival footage and first hand accounts of the movements, exploring the affect they had on the lives of those involved. The project’s chosen exhibition space, Scotland Street School Museum, purposefully brings this influential and largely hidden movement into the wider context of Glasgow’s educational history.

The project has been curated by Kitty Anderson and Siobhan Carroll in association with The Common Guild as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art

Opening times:
Tuesday to Thursday and Saturday 10am–5pm, Friday and Sunday 11am–5pm

Events will take place each Sunday of the exhibition between 2 – 4pm. For more details please click here.

Sarah Thelwall is the author of ‘Size Matters: Notes towards a Better Understanding of the Value, Operation and Potential of Small Visual Arts Organisations’ commissioned by Common Practice, London. She presents a paper on the economy and value of the small-scale visual arts sector in the UK in relation to the position of Flexibly Funded visual arts organisations in Scotland.

To listen to an audio recording of the talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Glasgow-based lecturer, curator and writer, Dr. Sarah Lowndes offers her thoughts on Thea Djordjadze’s work.

To listen to an audio recording of this talk on Vimeo, please click here.

Download the Commentary by Dr. Sarah Lowndes here.

Thea Djordjadze talks about her exhibition at The Common Guild ‘Lost Promise in a Room’.

This film is temporarily unavailable but will be online again soon!

Roundtable Conversations offer an opportunity to develop various lines of enquiry prompted by exhibitions at The Common Guild. This event will focus on the work of Thea Djordjadze and includes contributions from artist Sara Barker and Charlotte Day, Associate Curator at ACCA, Melbourne.

24th September 2011

Press ReleaseDownload the press release for The Djordjadze’s exhibition here

Djordjadze’s sculptures range from intimate hand-held objects to large architectural forms. Often referencing the body through the suggestion of clothing or furniture, her sculptures allude to familiar forms through their scale, shape and surface. Despite this familiarity, her work often appears to come from another time or place, or to suggest a previous existence or forthcoming use.

Working with a range of commonplace materials such as plaster, cardboard, wood and fabric, Djordjadze creates fragile, hand-made objects that appear partially constructed and partially destroyed. Djordjadze presents these hand-made objects alongside found items such as photographs, carpets and clothing suggesting ritualistic use or religious shrines. By utilising display mechanisms like shelves, plinths, tables and cabinets within the work she aligns the objects with something between the ethnographic museum and the fetishised collection.

For her exhibition at The Common Guild, Thea Djordjadze will make new work for the grand domestic spaces at 21 Woodlands Terrace.

Exhibition open Wednesday — Saturday, 12 noon — 5pm and until 7pm on Thursday and Friday, or by appointment at other times.

Supported by The Henry Moore Foundation.

Dr. Dominic Paterson, writer and art historian based at the University of Glasgow, offers his thoughts on the exhibition “You seem the same as always, -”.

To listen to an audio recording of the talk, please click here.

To download the Commentary by Dr. Dominic Paterson, please click here.

Our fourth Roundtable Conversation offers an opportunity to discuss the work of the three artists exhibiting in Structure & Material and question whether this show makes it possible, or even appropriate, to consider to their practice in relation to gender.

With contributions from:
Claire Barclay, exhibiting artist
Becky Beasley, exhibiting artist
Katrina Brown, Director, The Common Guild
Helen Legg, Director, Spike Island, Bristol
Francis McKee, Director, CCA, Glasgow

In the third event of the series, the Roundtable Conversation will focus on “You seem the same as always, -“ and will offer an opportunity to develop the ideas behind the exhibition.

“You seem the same as always, -” brings together a range of works by international and Glasgow-based artists, which share a very particular focus: that of the artist’s own hand. The exhibition includes film, video, photography, prints, drawings and objects, all of which share a refreshing sense of immediacy and directness and vary from the witty to the uncanny.

“You seem the same as always, -” is rich in echoes of art history, not least in the title, which originates in correspondence between Sol Le Witt and Eva Hesse and is cited in Kate Davis’ work. The exhibition reflects the extent to which, even when faced with an ever-increasing range of media and new technologies, there remains a recurrent fascination with and recourse to the most constant and immediate tool: his or her own hand. The gathering of works reflects our enduring interest in the artist as author and the biography behind the work, most explicitly in the work by Feldmann that is comprised of handprints of some of the 20th century’s most famous artists.

28th May 2011

Press ReleaseDownload the press release for ‘You seem the same as always’ here

The Common Guild has commissioned a series of short texts to accompany exhibitions. Written by artists, critics and curators, the texts offer an individual perspective on the work rather than a standard overview.

All the texts will be available to download from our website over the coming months and the first few are available here.

04 Dr Dominic Paterson  Roni Horn
05 Dr Dominic Paterson on Mircea Cantor
07 Jonathan Griffin on Gerard Byrne
08.1 Neil Clements on Robert Barry
8.2 Ross Birrell on Robert Barry
09.1 Dr Dominic Paterson on Tacita Dean
09.2 Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith on Tacita Dean
10 Jenny Brownrigg on Ulla von Brandenburg
11 Dominic Paterson on “You seem the same as always, -”
12 Sarah Lowndes on Thea Djordjadze
13 Mike Sperlinger on ‘How to Look at Everything’
14 Sophie O’Brien on Wolfgang Tillmans
15 Lucy Askew on Ugo Rondinone

Click through the images on the right to see how to compile your collection.

Roundtable Conversations offer an opportunity to develop various lines of enquiry prompted by the exhibitions at The Common Guild. The second event in the series will focus on Ulla von Brandenburg’s work and will include short presentations by theatre director Graham Eatough and artist Ruth Barker.

Jenny Brownrigg, Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art, offers her thoughts on the work of Ulla von Brandenburg.

To listen to an audio recording of the talk, please click here.

To download the Commentary by Jenny Brownrigg, please click here.

‘Neue Alte Welt’

2nd April 2011

Press ReleaseDownload the press release for Ulla von Brandenburg’s exhibition ‘Neue Alte Welt’ here