New Exhibitions in Glasgow: Sarah Lucas, Toby Paterson

Sarah Lucas. Tramway, Glasgow

Toby Paterson. Modern Institute, Glasgow

Filthy Granny, Sarah Lucas

Until the 31st of March, 2014 the main exhibition space of the Tramway will be taken over by a major exhibition by the artist Sarah Lucas. Known as one of the "Young British Artists (YBA)" who came to prominence in the 1990s her work is often more provocative, humorous and in your face than her contemporaries so it is great to get a chance to see it in Glasgow. She often featured self-portraits in her work, such as in the well know photograph of her lounging back with two fried eggs on her T-shirt. On show at this exhibition the first image that greets you when you come in the door is her "Self-Portrait With Cigarettes" (literally made with cigarettes). Cigarettes to the fore again, drooping from her mouth in a wall of black and white photographs, "Fighting Fire With Fire" as she scowls in the macho pose familiar from mug shots and James Dean posters along one wall. However what really catches the eye when you enter the hall is the huge, pink fibre glass "Wanking Arm" which mechanically rises and falls like some weird fairground attraction. It feels uncomfortable standing alone in a gallery trying to nonchalantly ponder such a thing or the wall behind it, huge photographs of her ex-partner lounging back with a variety comestibles lying in his lap over his genitals, generally meat and two veg. The unsettling and embarrassed feeling of looking at these things did make me reflect on the way the female body is used throughout art, and in popular culture. I can give no clearer example of the way women are routinely portrayed in art than by referring you to the Jack Vettriano exhibition which has been drawing large crowds at the Kelvingrove art gallery. This is emphasised by the tabloid newspapers which feature in several of the works, such as "The Man Who Sold The World", an HGV cab where the walls are completely covered in yellowing page 3 pictures, whilst a smaller version of the "wanking arm" rocks up and down in the driver's seat. The point of the representation of women in popular culture is well made, but the HGV cab and the shed plastered with tabloids nearby feel like too easy a pop at caricatures of working class men.

The Man Who Sold The World, Sarah Lucas

More nuanced was the stuff in the other half of the hall, although nuanced may seem like a strange word to use when you are faced with a couple of totemic 8 foot long concrete penises. It's all sex and death. Cold urban spaces are conjured up by the furniture about the exhibition made from breeze blocks, crushed cars and the unsettling wall of huge photographs ("Concrete Void"). It shows a dimly lit multi-storey car park and with all the sexual images about it is hard not to fear for what has been going on in the car park. The crushed cars here amongst the enormous cocks and marrows, one beside a neon coffin ("New Religion") make you think of the common saying of men with big cars making up for their small penis.

New Religion, Sarah Lucas

I particularly liked the Volvo (a car which has the male sexual symbol as its logo) with the glass smashed and lying, glinting on the floor, "Islington Diamonds". The way the windscreen has been smashed makes you wonder about whether someone had been knocked down by it, or whether it has just been vandalised. I also remembered a friend (who shall remain nameless) who vandalised her boyfriend's car after he had cheated on her, the coup de gras being the two bananas she shoved up the exhaust pipe. Actually now that I think about it, that car would have felt quite at home in this room.

The exhibition is excellent. It did make me squirm, giggle and ponder. The leaflet for the exhibition talks about this being some of her "seminal work" without really reflecting on the use of that word. They have asked that all children attending the exhibition are accompanied by an adult. From the evidence of the children running about it all with their parents whilst I was there they seem to take it all in their stride, but I hope I've given you a heads up of what to expect if you fancy making a family trip of it. ("Yes dear, it's a big hand waving").

The biggest collection of pricks on display in Glasgow since....(supply your own punchline).

The Modern Institute is a wee gallery hidden down Osborne Street that always has interesting stuff and I often pop in if I'm heading to Monorail to pick up some Monday morning CDs. They have a new exhibition by Toby Paterson on just now, "Soft Boundary". This features his sideways look at the urban landscape with a mixture of paintings, reliefs and painted pallistrades in the gallery. I guess you either like his stuff (I do) or you don't. Worth popping in ifr you are passing. Not a phallus in sight.

Toby Paterson at the Modern Institute

Football History - Two Glasgow Exhibitions

The Scottish Football Museum, Hampden Stadium, Glasgow

More Than a Game, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

There are two opportunities at present to look at the history of football in exhibitions in Glasgow. Firstly there is the Scottish Football Museum which has had a space in Hampden Park ever since the stadium was redeveloped. Alternatively, at Kelvingrove Art Gallery until 18th Aug 2013 is an exhibition entitled "More Than a Game: How Scotland Shaped World Football".

Firstly I went with my children to the Hampden Museum, as we hadn't been for ages. It's £10 to see the museum and get the stadium tour, but children with Glasgow Kids' Cards are free (£5 otherwise). In the years that have passed since we were last there not a lot has changed. It starts off with a chronological look at the development of the game in Scotland, from the world's oldest international match between Scotland and England, played in Partick in 1872, to the foundation of the football league and it's development over the years. There are lots of nods to Scotland international teams, as is appropriate at the national stadium, particularly those that got to World Cup finals, with a model and video of Archie Gemmill's goal against the Netherlands, looking like something from a bygone era nowadays. It makes this solitary goal into a bit of a religious relic which is probably overstating its importance on the world stage. I think the film Trainspotting captured the moment more relevantly.

Much like Scotland reaching the World Cup, other things on show needed explained to my children as being before their time and entirely alien. For example, why exactly were there rows of "Inva-cars" along the touchline at most matches in the 70s? There is an awful lot on Rangers and Celtic here: photos of Terry Butcher, Ally McCoist's golden boot, Neil Lennon's shirt and various paintings of Celtic players. The "Hall of Fame" has a preponderance of Old Firm players too. Bertie Auld and Maurice Johnston were the only ones I spotted with a Partick Thistle link on my quick glance at the list, but then again I'm guessing it was their Rangers/ Celtic connections that got them listed here too, no? So we filled in a card to nominate a current Partick Thistle legend for this honour.

Chris 'Squiddy' Erskine's Hall of Fame Nomination

On looking at the Scottish Cup trophy, which is on permanent display here, I took what I saw on it as a good omen for the end of this season.

I'd like to see the First Division League table at the end of the 2012-13 season looking something like this, with Partick Thistle just one place above Morton. (If the picture isn't clear it says "Won by... No competition...Kilmarnock...Partick Thistle 1920-21...Morton 1921-22...Celtic...". In fact these were the first and last years that Partick Thistle and Morton have won the Scottish Cup).

Next up was the stadium tour. Considering that our group consisted of us being the only Glaswegians (and Partick Thistle fans to boot) plus families from Fraserburgh, Mauchline and Falkirk it was again depressingly centred on tales of Rangers and Celtic: which end they get for finals, which dressing rooms, which side of the tunnel they stand on. Please, Rangers and Celtic are not all that there is to Scottish football, and in fact most of the time they seem to be playing here against their will. The ground itself is the property of Queens Park Football Club of course of whom we heard precious little, and the tour guide's talk was out-dated by the fact that the old firm teams are 3 leagues apart at present and Rangers will only be visiting Hampden on league business for a while yet.

 

Warm-up area, Hampden Stadium

The tour itself is good though and was the favourite part of the visit for my children. You get into the referees' rooms and the dressing rooms, which to be honest were a wee bit wiffy from the Scotland and Wales teams occupying them 48 hours earlier. The astroturf indoor warm-up area allows everyone to have a quick kickabout. Then you get to walk out through the tunnel onto the pitch and pretend you are being greeted by the Hampden roar. A good time was had by all.

 

 

As the exhibition on at Kelvingrove is being organised by the Scottish Football Museum I wasn't sure if there was just going to be a lot of duplication. However from the leaflet promoting it it is clear that promisingly it aims to have a broader reach than just the Old Firm. There are talks running alongside it on topics such as women's football, the world's first black international footballer (Scotland's captain in 1881, Andrew Watson), Third Lanark, Queen's Park and from a Mr Robert Reid at Woodside Library on the 8th of June "The Story of Partick Thistle Football Club".

Entrance to the Kelvingrove exhibition

Like all the visiting exhibitions at Kelvingrove there is an entry fee of £5, but children under 16 are free. The normal Kelvingrove organ recitals were meant to have a footballing slant  with such classics as "Ally's Tartan Army" being performed, but at the time of writing a "technical issue" means that this isn't happening yet (I think it's just that technically this isn't actually music).

A nice touch was the entry ticket being a reproduction of the tickets for the world's first "International Foot-Ball Match" in 1872 at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground in Partick.

 

 The exhibition itself is far more engaging than the one at Hampden and does make a better connection with the social history of football clubs' origins, particularly in the parts around the Third Lanark army regiment or the leather workers in Partick making 20 Tomlinson T-panel footballs a week. Also the early history of football in Scotland, including a leather football from the 1540s and early records of women's football are good. Although the exhibition is titled "How Scotland Shaped World Football" this doesn't really feature prominently in the exhibits, but a touchscreen tells the stories of Scots immigrants bringing football to all the corners of the Empire and beyond.  A lot of this is expanded upon in the interesting wee guide booklet.

I quite liked seeing the square wooden goalposts taken from Hampden which St Etienne fans blame for their not winning the 1976 European Cup Final due to their shape.

Otherwise the football parts are more predictable, but interesting none the less with films on the Real Madrid cup final at Hampden, the Busby Babes and various old Scottish international matches. Also the paean to great Scottish managers doesn't have any surprises, but what is glossed over is that Scotland once lead the way in many areas of football development, but we have now been left behind looking at museum exhibits of our former glories.

 

As a Partick Thistle fan I cannot stop myself looking out for any references to my team, and much as at Hampden (where a copy of the old fanzine "Sick In The Basin" is on show) here it was just in relation to our supporters with a couple on supporters club membership books on display.

My children were kept engaged throughout this exhibition with video touchscreens challenging you to be the referee, a virtual football video game projected on the floor, dressing up boxes and a brass rubbing bit with club badges.

"Can you see what it is yet?"

After that there is the obligatory exit through the gift shop, which has a Subbuteo table set up, which almost got me buying it anew, but I settled for the Partick Thistle coloured "The Jags" sweets instead, which I was delighted to see appeared to be outselling all of the others. Well, we were in the west end of Glasgow after all. 

What's on in Glasgow this week?

A quick review of current exhibitions at GoMA, Tramway, The Modern Institute and The Glasgow Print Studio

I'm off work for a few days, and with the kids all still at school am being self-indulgent and swanning around Glasgow during the day. Sometimes I think you forget to check all the things which are going on in your own city. You just take them for granted.

On show at GoMA just now

I've avoided GoMA for a while, because it was always the same stuff on display that I'd seen before, but when I went in to have a look around recently it had all been changed. With the help of The Common Guild and The Art Fund the museum has acquired a lot of new works and has them all on show. There are videos, photography, paintings, sculpture and ceramics spread throughout the building and although not all of it is to my taste, there is a lot of good stuff there. At present the gallery justifies the word "modern" in it's title.

The Tramway is another place I don't go to that often, but I made a rare expedition to the southside to see what was happening there this week. The draw for me was to have a nosey at The Glad Cafe, a new cafe and venue on Pollokshaws Road which has opened. It has hosted a great selection of musicians and talks since it opened and I think if it was nearer my house I'd be a regular by now. I think it is in an ex-snooker hall and has been nicely set up. On their website they speak positively of being at "the heart of Scotland's most ethnically diverse community" and I hope they are taking steps to engage all of that diverse community as on the day I visited it was a wholly white, middle-class looking crowd that was there. The food was tasty, the ambience laid back and the forthcoming events intriguing, so good luck to them.

Richard Hughes "Community fun day"

The Tramway has a great selection of stuff on just now. The current Sonica festival has a lot on the go here (more on that another day). The main hall has an exhibition of work by Richard Hughes entitled "Where It All Happened Once", familiar objects recreated in phenomenal detail in resin and fibreglass amongst other things. Familiar objects range from discarded cardboard boxes and sleeping bags to a community centre dropped on its side. It is at times familiar and also very surreal. Even things like the drainpipes on the gallery walls, which look mundane at first glance, spell out words when viewed at a certain angle. It's a lot of fun.

"Sleeping Rust" by Richard Hughes

Upstairs at the Tramway there is the Koestler Exhibition, a great exhibition of prisoners' artwork curated by David Shrigley.

All of these exhibitions I've mentioned above are free to visit. So too are The Modern Institute and the Glasgow Print Studio where I went next. The Print Studio at the Trongate has an exhibition upstairs called "Academians II" featuring the work of John Byrne, Norman Ackroyd, Philip Reeves and Chris Orr. My favourite works where by the latter, whose stuff I don't really know. I particularly liked Nagasaki Mon Amour.

Nagasaki Mon Amour by Chris Orr

The Modern Institute is just around the corner, hiding on Osbourne Street. I always forget about it, but whenever I go it always has really imaginative, bizarre or interesting exhibitions. In the main space just now are new works by Glasgow based artist Cathy Wilkes, who represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2005 and was a Turner Prize nominee in 2008. It is slightly creepy wandering between her strange mannequins and the various other objects strewn about the gallery. I found it hard to work out what the context was which made it a bit eerie, but I kept thinking that they looked like Glasgow children from a Joan Eardley painting.

Cathy Wilkes at The Modern Institute

Upstairs there are a selection of ceramics by Japanese artist Shio Kusaka, arranged on a plain table. I didn't really know what to make of this. Empty vessels? Nice jugs? You decide.


A lot of these exhibitions don't have much longer to run, except for Richard Hughes stuff, so if any of that grabs your fancy, get yourself along.