Four for Mutuality

AMY-

Mixing bowls belching out heaps of savoury snacks, a myriad of multi-coloured drinks; syrupy, cloying cavity catalysts, a fluffy pink mask sails past at eyesight- was that, is that my chum behind there? Speakers blare corny anthems, everyone is sporting little badges and enters through a silvery, fringed curtain straight into a rip-roaringly good old time. The evening was, perhaps some two sausage dog balloons and a clown short of bearing a true semblance of the most wonderful ever kid’s party. To interpose, that is, ahem, with an exceptionally mature, insightful offering of work from our collaborating artists.

Intentionally serving as welcome playback of erstwhile jolly misadventures- before council tax and c.vs and dole queues- the tone of the exhibition, in its entirety, was a little nostalgic for something now past; those heady days of party-harding which characterised Art School term time. Wearing rejection ever easier now, no longer licking our paws in maudlin self pity with each knock- back, each second sentence carried on the air seems to be suffixed with ‘I saw this residency online’ in somewhere or other. But one should not be deceived nor indeed disheartened by the necessity of ‘Jackmove’s unreserved jubilance to cure the onslaught of grown-up monotony now setting in. Professional opportunities have fallen into the worthy laps of many of Show Two’s exhibiting artists, pre-empting recognition and exorbitant success upon whom they have been bestowed. Slowly but, indisputably surely this year’s batch of fresh baked Glasgow art graduates are charting a clear route for themselves in the hinterland post Art School. Given a year, or perhaps less, it can be fully expected that they will emerge entirely from the undergrowth, rubbing their eyes, newly resplendent masters of their own practice.

Wary and not a little disquieted by the astronomical alcoholic percentage of Zamaretto we soon discovered that this was gloriously concealed by the most cheering of sugar-sweet flavours. The bar was arranged with bottles in colour gradation, from ambery peach and yellow-golden pear through to a windsory green apple and true blue raspberry, which was positively cerulean! The masses present were forced to individually ask themselves a question when confronted with bountifully free measures of this unfamiliar spirit. Their internal dialogue went something like this;

‘Am I Zam?’ glug of the beverage ‘Zam I am!’

Boy oh boy, Zam they certainly were, putting the stuff away like teens at a soda fountain and uncovering a vast quantity of mixer combinations in the process. Banana and coke, cherry and coke, pear and cloudy lemonade, original on the rocks and chocolate with milk à la white Russians all come highly recommended. Think something which looks like fruit syrup and tastes so innocuous must surely be a placebo? Think again.

CARRIE-

We vowed to learn from our previous slip-ups as we readied ourselves for JACK MOVE, the second of three GSA Mutual shows at the Southside Studios. However aware we were this time of such obstacles, new difficulties inevitably arose…surely this should get easier!?

Well, tonight is the night and we have overcome hiccups and it looks great. Walls have been filled in and painted, work has been hung, and then re hung, alcohol has arrived and posters have been distributed.

Now all that is left to do is for you to all come tonight from 7pm to the Southside Studios. See you there!

JULIET-

Here are some photos from the opening of show one ‘Descent Into The Maelstrom’ and of B-movies in the fridge gallery the next day. Sadly none of the afterparty at which within the refined confines of the Research Club, the Glasgow University Post graduate Union there was crowd surfing ( I only know that because i overheard people talking about it at the opening at Tramway on Friday, I don’t clearly recall the crowd surfing, I was having too much of a good time to notice even human bodies being passed over my head). On second thoughts I’m rather glad my all too exuberant dancing was not captured on camera.

With thanks to Joanna Waclawski for her diligent photo-taking in the face of extreme cider consumption.

AMY-

So 408 bottles of pear cider and a barrel of kettle chips later we find ourselves having pulled off a memorable, interesting and well attended exhbition. Upon entering the vestibule one is met with a crescendo of sound, emitted from an animation projected onto the ceiling; a contribution, from participating artist Jonny Long. Necks craned, entrants who had just made it through the rather industrial style door bore witness to a 30 second film, closely followed by an exhibit which necessitated a plunging downward, a film played on a television screen situated at the depth of a black shaft upon whose sides swarmed an army of white protruding growths. Thus far, in true homage to Poe the aesthetic has confined itself to a monochromatic spectrum; a facet which continues in the work of Julia Mckinlay in her offering of a framed drawing in inkpen. Considered, linear and sparse, McKinlay also delivers a healthy dose of pathos in her arctic landscapoe with horn adorned penguin. Advancing slong the white corridor ( it took 4 coats of white paint to eradicate the stencilled face of a little spaceman who grinned back at us unphased after the first two coats. Anyone might think he was mocking our efforts to convert that long but very useful passageway into some semblance of a gallery space) one is then met with the small scale framed pencil drawings by artist cum curator Juliet Fellows Smith. Intense and densely shaded at intervals the drawings harbour something of the loneliness and melancholy present in the poster image and which emanates from the narrative of Poe’s piece of work from which the show took its title. An abandoned boat became something of a motif in the very fabric of the show itself. Lastly; an onslaught of sound. Just as one is losing oneself in the shadows of these quiet but brooding images which seem somehow to have been wraught into existence against their will a cacophony of American monologues berrate the gallery attendee back into the space, and one has the sense of being somehow chastised by these faceless voices reporting on various political issues. Accompanying this unashamedly rude awakening ( one is blasted by speaker on either side of the corridor) are stacks of pulped newspaper; a veritable mulch of text and Jeremy Oversier’s interpretation of the maelstrom as an endless mass of information rendered meaningless by its very magnitude. Turning right one then enters the gallery space ( via the St. Helier’s stall set up outside, obviously). For those of you who then proceeded into the gallery Well Done and for the rest of you who simply clung barnacle like to the table, practically buckling with pear cider for the rest of the evening Shame on you. The gallery comprised the work of no less than five separate artists which, in an area no larger than a generoous airing cupboard, ought perhaps to have felt crowded. In fact, this was by no means the case.