- Venue
- Glasgow School of Art
- Location
- Scotland
The first word that comes to mind when trying to describe the GSA Fine Art Degree Show is ‘exhausting.’ If other shows were a gentle jog, this was an endurance race, and a hard one with lots of hills. Still I suppose in a way saying that is a testament to the amount of decent work on display here, showing that I was captivated enough to keep going, and not collapse through boredom or fatigue.
First off were the large scale woodcuts of Sarah Campbell, which were extremely technically impressive, not to mention bold and colourful. My only fear is that many people viewing these pieces didn’t truly appreciate the amount of effort that must have gone into their production. Continuing along the labyrinthine, never-ending corridors I found the work of Katy Fenton. This hanging cluster of drug bottles presented a very confusing environment, each bottle filled with none-descript fluids and objects and labelled even more confusingly. Some of the labels could be accurate, others I pray are not, others seem completely unbelievable. The installation drags me almost into madness, a metaphorical drug induced delirium and a poignant comment on contemporary society.
Caroline Skinner’s installation does an excellent job of confusing my visual and aural perception as well, but with the ceiling mounted TV screen looping some kind of ‘80s pop song I get the feeling that may not have been the point. Eventually I find something that makes a tad more sense: Ian Birkmyre’s ‘noisemachines,’ which were quite literally machines that made noise. These curious looking contraptions made from ‘appropriated’ material, a polite artistic term for skip diving, presented a wonderful slap-dash aesthetic, although the noises they made were anything but tuneful.
Following a similar vein of tuneless-ness I groped my way into the domain of Robbie Thomson. For his installation Thomson sectioned off a section of the studio space, reducing it to near complete darkness, filling the space with odd mechanisms and lights. Small motors vibrating piano strings created an eerie atmosphere, but I felt rather let down with the lack of a strobe light promised in the warning notice at the entrance to the space. A partial success then, that I imagine could have been something special were it not for technical difficulties.
Pressing valiantly onwards I couldn’t help but start to notice the prevalence of video art in this show. However, as with most video art I’ve ever encountered, I struggled to make any sense of them and eventually gave up before my brain melted. Instead I stumbled upon the work of Georgina Errington, who is quite frankly obsessed with gelatine. Although I had to admire her commitment to a material, and must admit that some of the works created were surprisingly stimulating.
ACD Ferguson’s light and sound art moved the stimulation up a notch, and was unbelievably impressive considering it was essentially a series of fans in a dark room with glow-sticks attached to them. The monotonous, near over-whelming whir of the fans slowly rotating in the darkened space creating an impressively eerie atmosphere.
By far the most impressive work of the show so far thought was Harriet Lowther’s ‘Big Thank You Project,’ a literal wall of thank you letters written and posted to anyone and everyone who assisted her in her daily life, from the underground service, to her supermarket, to the makers of her favourite biscuits. As well as an amusing spectacle this was also an impressive comment on the callousness of contemporary society and the lack of appreciation and understanding of how much effort other people go to to make our lives easier. Perhaps the most poignant element in Lowther’s exhibit were the responses from the reams of companies she approached, most notably one from Glasgow’s Subway operator SPT calling her their “nicest ever customer.” Also impressive was the discovery of a video piece I actually enjoyed, a film by Katherine Gallacher. A wonderfully simple and elegant work filmed in Black & White, it is difficult to describe exactly what made this piece so mesmerising, but it really was.
I must mention the work of Desmond Church, whose sketches of possible artistic interventions were a suitable comic relief, I only wish he’d actually taken the time to execute some of them, especially my personal favourite of the harmonica attached to a hand-dryer. David Jacobs also deserves mention at this point for his amusing and rather complicated explanation of how a robot painted his space with bold coloured lines.
Comic relief over, I was drawn to the rather serious work of Jonathan Abensur, his neon piece ‘Who are you now,’ was simple yet effective, and surprisingly confrontational presented, as it was, in a small cupboard like enclosure. Most impressive of Abensur’s work though was a plinth filled with liquid into which viewers were invited to drop small drawings on tracing paper. It was oddly captivating watching these pieces of paper, small shreds of ideas, slowly diffuse and sink; an excellent, if rather depressing, comment on the nature of existence.
On the home stretch now and I must mention the prints of Ellie Royle, Allison Whitehall’s eloquent abstract forms constructed from plywood, Christine Leathem’s fantastically complex photo-collages, and finally the disturbing if excellently composed paintings of Brian McCluskey.
To summarise then, despite nearly collapsing, there was a great deal of decent work on display at the GSA. However I can’t help but compare it to the other two degree shows in Edinburgh and Dundee I have recently visited. Each have had their own advantages, Dundee contained some extremely accomplished practitioners, Edinburgh some extremely innovative practitioners, but the only thing that really stood out about Glasgow was the sheer scale of the event. There was a great deal to enjoy about the GSA show and some extremely accomplished individuals, but I still can’t shake the feeling that this show dealt decidedly more in quantity rather than quality.
