Casual Fragrance

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2|1|4|1 was founded in May 2013 by Glasgow and Edinburgh based artists Rosie Roberts, Kirsty Macleod and Frances Lightbound. Here they tell us how it all came about.

2012 alumni of Glasgow School of Art and Gray’s School of Art, Rosie wrote the manifesto, approached Fran and then Kirsty and we set out on a quest to find like-minded artists – also in the youth of their careers – to join us in our mission to alter the flow of opportunities and information in the notoriously hazy, nepotistic, post-graduation art world.

We held our first meeting with the original members in May 2013 and started to act together as a collective straight away; writing articles for the website, meeting monthly to discuss our plans and what was going on with the emergent art scene in Scotland. We interviewed, previewed, and reviewed many wonderful artists and exhibitions from Turner Prize nominees to final year students.

Our Manifesto outlined a commitment to bridging the gap between graduation and a sustainable career in the arts. Our values demand transparency and a desire to implement a go-to support system for all fresh graduates and early-career artists.

This support system not only includes free publicity for artists, their events and related happenings but also a curatorial programme. Within this programme we strive for accessibility, a rational approach to application systems and critically engaging exhibitions, whether this be in the form of showcases or more specific projects. We have a great residency/exhibition opportunity coming up next spring, which is a collaboration with The Number Shop – a new space in Edinburgh.

Every year we have a members show and party, our first one was in SWG3 with a mammoth turn out, a great party and a wonderful integrated programme with discussion groups, screenings, and in conversation events. This year it was a little more informal but with an equally engaging integrated programme including lectures, book launches and a super fun raffle. It was held at The Old Hairdressers a couple weeks ago. Our membership is constantly fluctuating with old members moving on and new ones coming in which makes these annual shows a really dynamic example of what the collective stands for – a critical commitment to the making and exhibiting of contemporary visual art.

Right now, one thing is clear to us as a collective: artists, whether they be young, old, established or fresh meat, recognise the important role that they play in a fulfilling society, and that this role can only be exploited or under-valued to the detriment of those who do so.

We always wanted 2|1|4|1 to be a place of free and open discussion, to offer the opportunity of critical writing for people presenting work, without feeling like any hierarchy outside of the strength of the work itself would be recognised. Nepotism, money, grand establishments and age-old thinking can only lock the door of opportunity if we let them, which we don’t plan on doing anytime soon!

Find more information about 2|1|4|1 Collective and read their manifesto on their website.

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Alasdair Gray Season: Spheres of Influence II is an exhibition currently at The Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Gallery until 25 January. The show seeks to provide an alternative reading of Alasdair Gray’s visual work by showcasing both historical and contemporary works. See work from Gray’s personal archive in the exhibition which forms part of the larger Alasdair Gray Season, celebrating the artist’s 80th birthday across Glasgow.

In addition, a series of talks will run around various themes including emasculation, class, the grotesque and fonts. Hear from Rachel Maclean about ‘Brawny Bachelors & Macho Maidens‘ on 19 December and Edwin Pickstone in his talk ‘A potted history of the alphabet and its designs’ on 14 January.

Fore more about the exhibition which runs until 25 January, see the GSA website here.

Images courtesy of GSA with credit to Alan Dimmick

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Konstantina Tsirogianni is originally from Greece and came to Glasgow to study for a Masters in Interior Design at the Glasgow School of Art. Throughout her degree she developed an interest in light-based art installations and the use of light as a medium to create experimental visual environments. Here, she talks more about her work, art and spatial perception…

Hypothetical movement diagrams

I am interested in researching how we perceive space visually, and how we can create different experiences within a space. While experimenting on lighting projections and moving images, my intention is to identify and reveal the potentials of space. I explore the possibilities of how light, a formless material, can inhabit the architecture of a space and shape temporary multi-sensory experiences. My aspiration is to transform different places into performative spaces of art.

Capturing movements

‘Unseen’ is a proposal for an intervention within a building, The Whisky Bond, where I study the possibilities of movement, the experience of space in terms of perception and reflection and the interaction of our bodies with the surrounding environment.

Movement patterns

The research begins with the idea of identifying the connections between the building and its urban context. The city map is explored as a network of lines, points and relationships, which are translated into forms that surround the building. The idea evolves by defining the building as a core of literal or metaphorical communication. The building is interpreted as a network of movement. The exploration continues with the creation of hypothetical movement diagrams concerning the relationships of hidden movement either in real space or in imaginary space.

Facade patterns

Exterior lighting projection

The experiences of space and the impact upon its users are translated into geometrical forms and patterns that are depicted with the use of digital media as a projection-animation. Light and shadow are the only materials. They become the means to reveal unperceived information and create transformations into reality. The intervention is an investigation between observation and thought. A journey begins, starting from the exterior facade and continues to the interior where the user acts as a spectator at first but then his presence becomes part of the intervention.

Through further development and research, the idea can be applied in different buildings and spaces within the city revealing the interstitially and intercommunication of real space and space of thought. The notion of interstitial space and the use of lighting projections can be explored as a means to change the built boundaries of an existing space and expand our way to perceive things.

Interior lighting projection

Interested in seeing more from Konstantina? See her previously showcased work here.

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The Plinth is a living room gallery, a project founded by Hamish Chapman, Freya Fullarton and Charlotte Fountaine. Hamish and Freya are both fine art students in their final year at Glasgow School of Art, and Charlotte is a designer who recently graduated.

Your Doorbell by David Stobart -  1 September 2014

Plinth Assemblage by Louise Worrel – 14 July 2014

The aim of The Plinth is to allow people to have a pressure-free exhibition, atop a plinth in their flat in Maryhill, Glasgow. It arose out of the idea of having a really easy low-key way of having little exhibitions. Each exhibition runs for one week only, and is documented online and in the quarterly publication. This way, all works that go on The Plinth will reach an audience. So far, the project has been running since March 2014 and has featured work by many artists and designers – a few from overseas and many Scotland based. The Plinthis currently seeking funding to print a second addition of the publication, featuring the latest exhibitions.

Untitled by Molly Line – 11 August 2014

Somethin’ Like Slovakia Rhia Lang – 15 September 2014

Patrick Church – Current Exhibition

Find more information about past exhibitions and the artists who have exhibited on The Plinth’s website. Submissions are more than welcome. The next week-long slot to have an exhibition is late November 2014. If you would like to exhibit on the The Plinth please get in touch here.

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GSA Communication Design ’14 is a blog featuring work from final year Communication Design students at The Glasgow School of Art.

A selection of works from their blog:

Sandwiching negatives by Cecilie Osnes

Nancy Haslam

Their next upcoming event is their Work in Progress Show on 31 January at onecubeortwo in Glasgow.

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An award winning artist, Cook works with lens-based media focusing on large format film and antique photographic practice; he is also an award-winning filmmaker, combining 8mm and 16mm film with digital technology to great effect. His work is mercurial, rooted in place and the intrinsic connections between people, land and sea. Cook is currently artist in residence for Absent Voices. He tells us more about his work.

YOU are an artist. I was told this on the day I walked into Glasgow School of Art for the first time and it still fills me with both joy and fear. I make as many films as I put photographs on gallery walls. When I make a film for someone, I’m of course billed as a filmmaker. When I make photographs, because of the nature of them (physical, often plates on glass or tin) I’m often described as an artist. You are what you are making, creatively speaking, it seems.

I trained as an architect and my memories of an architectural education at Glasgow School of Art are that it was highly competitive. What it also was though was open; we worked across the whole school, especially in the early years, working under tremendous and enthusiastic people like Tony Barbour, and spending as much time as I liked life drawing. As the world of architecture closed in after three years, I began to make films on 8mm and slowly my current world opened up. What has stayed with me is the history, being taught by Gavin Stamp and James Macaulay was an honour; I used to sneak friends to their lectures. This engendered a love of landscape, place, people, of psychogeography.

Held [made for Shane Balkowitsch’s ‘Mask Series’, to be exhibited in the USA in 2014]

Aimee Neville [Collodion Portrait Series]

Kirsty Louise Jones [Collodion Portrait Series]

Over the past three years, thanks to Katie Cooke and Carl Radford, I’ve been working in portraiture using wet plate collodion, an entirely chemical photographic process dating from 1851. It was the primary method of capturing images from the early 1850s until the 1880s. The process must be completed before the plate dries; this brings a certain intensity, offering the ability to produce mercurial and unique images. What drives me in portraiture is the person: sitting, talking, drinking tea with the other I am about to capture.

The process of wet plate collodion is a process with a limited timeframe and yet there is no shutter on the camera: I am exposing using my hand and counting out loud in elephants (seconds). If I got my fancy pants Canon 5D Mark 3 out and snapped away, we may be at a 60th of a second, under lights. Your heart beats, your mind races, but what do you really do in a 60th of a second? With collodion, I use my hand to hold open the lens to expose a plate that I have just prepared for, say, five seconds. Within that time you can think. You can hear your heart beat and you can feel – nervous, comfortable, happy. Is this really just a photograph? There is more of you in it…

Rowan Davies, fisherman, Dunbar [McArthur’s Store Series]

Mick McLoughlin, Welder, McArthur’s Store, Dunbar [McArthur’s Store Series]

Currently I have an exhibition called McArthur’s Store at Dunbar Town House. McArthur’s Store is a series of wet plate collodion tintype portraits of the fishermen who work from an historic creel store on the Old Harbour in the small Scottish fishing town of Dunbar. With the support of Dunbar Harbour Trust, I set up a traditional dark room within McArthur’s Store, a building dating from 1658, working with the men in their place of work for a total of six months over two years. This work is centred on people and place, exploring the issues surrounding our effect on our landscape and what imbues the very spirit of place. I decided to use this antique process to record these fishermen as collodion is sensitive at the violet end of the spectrum, delivering a clear visual depth, a suggestion that we are peering beneath the skin. These men have worked outside their whole lives, thrown around in all weathers and as such the collodion seems to accentuate their age, their chapped lined sunshine beaten skin. After beginning, I learned that the fishermen were bringing on the next generation, so in the second year of my residency I made portraits of the young boys, just recent school leavers but already experienced fishermen.

Compound [McArthur’s Store Series]

Arc [McArthur’s Store Series]

“Arresting and nostalgic, contemplative and intriguing…Cook’s portraits create their own atmosphere and intrigue. Rooted in place, they reflect its spirit, at once harsh and poetic; the tracings of light from a northern sky on raw metal.”
Giles Sutherland, The Times [4 Stars].

McArthur’s Store is currently exhibited at Dunbar Town House until 20 December 2013. A series of 16 framed fisherman’s portraits will be touring the United Kingdom during 2014 and Alastair will be publishing an accompanying book; four of these portraits form part of the Democratic Salon at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh, exhibited until Christmas. This series of work was funded through North Light Arts by Creative Scotland as part of Year of Creative Scotland 2012 and Year of Natural Scotland 2013.

Uma Rebecca Nada-Rajah [Collodion Portrait Series]

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Stations of the Green was an exhibition at the New Glasgow Society Gallery on display from 26 April – 17 May 2013. The following review is by M.Res Glasgow School of Art student, Peter Drew.

There’s a great bit of footage from 1965 in which Bob Dylan meets a devout fan who asks Dylan the ‘meaning and philosophy’ behind the T-shirt he wore on a recent album cover. With enough wide eyed sincerity to make anyone wince, the fan unfolds his intricate theories only for Dylan to reply “I don’t really remember too much about it” with a mixture of amusement and fear at a fan clearly intoxicated with idolatry. I like to imagine that Douglas Gordon might react similarly to Stations of the Green if it were ever brought to his attention.

In 1990, the same year that Glasgow was wishfully dubbed the European city of culture, Douglas Gordon paid some other artists to paint 6 dates on an abandoned railway station along with the word ‘Mute’. At the time no one really knew what it meant and cared so little that by 1996 the site of the mural had become overgrown with vegetation. However, that same year Gordon won a prize that was fast becoming the main P.R. engine of British Contemporary art. Interest in the mural began to grow until now, 17 years later, Stations of the Green presents an exhibition dedicated to its memory. Such is the gilded light cast upon the Turner Prize recipient that it illuminates not only their future but also their past.

Last year the ruins of the Glasgow Green Station, upon which the mural was painted, were demolished, prompting curators Johnny Rodger and Mitch Miller to sift through the wreckage. Around the time of the demolition the BBC were in town making The Grit and the Glamour, in which Alan Yentob (jolly culture guy) fawns over the city’s contemporary art starts in a struggle to inflate the myth of the ‘Glasgow miracle’ without fainting. ‘Miracle’ because Glasgow’s identity was meant to be drenched in blue-collar authenticity, which isn’t very arty, right? But in the 90s it fit perfectly with the ‘brash rebel’ cliche of the Cool Britannia brand. So when Gordon’s mural was about to come down you’d think Alan Yentob and his BBC crew would be all over it, but no. Apparently Glasgow’s shrug of indifference at the mural’s destruction might have conflicted with the documentary’s premise that the ‘Glasgow Miracle’ had something to do with Glasgow.

So what is this mural all about? A general consensus holds that the dates refer to significant events in the city’s history of the labour movement that took place on or around Glasgow Green. The problem is that Gordon has never really confirmed this theory which leaves the door wide open for a long game of forensic inquiry. So, like an episode of Taggart, Stations of the Green is on the case.

Curator Johnny Rodger traces the last three dates to an essay by John Taylor Caldwell titled ‘The Battle for The Green’ published in a Workers City publication in 1987. According to the essay a bye-law was passed in 1916 that banned almost any form of public gathering that could be employed to political ends. The law was actually enforced in 1922 and finally revoked in 1932. A perfect match! This clue even suggests an explanation for Gordon’s use of the word ‘Mute’ in the fact that the law suppressed discourse. Rodgers goes on to postulate that ’1820′ refers to The Scottish insurrection.

The last two dates are harder to nail down. In fact you start to wonder “why am I nailing down dates at all”. Rodgers suggests that the whole thing might be a parody of the reductive practice of memorialising entire dates via public inscription. With typography so stark and authoritarian you might even hope that the mural is a parody. But it seems more likely to just be as critic Craig Richardson states that the dates suggest an alternative to the ‘centrally validated view of Glasgow’s history.’ I didn’t realise there was a ‘centrally validated’ view of Glasgow’s history but I guess it could be fun to imagine you were rebelling against one.

Aside from the wealth of investigative documentation, the exhibition includes responses to the mural in the form of new artworks. Photographer Michael Mersinis has captured some beautiful black and white textures of the earth where the wall fell that convey the violence of erasure and the sterility that remains.

Illustrator Mitch Miller dérived his way around Glasgow Green and produced a series of songlines that imagine the spiritual connection to the places where protestors marched and fought and sang.

Behind a dark curtain at the back of the exhibition rests a stone autopsy in the form of three large fragments from the wall itself. Recovered from a council depot in Shettleston, these six letters from the Glasgow Gr-EE-n Sta-TI-ON sign convey just how big the wall actually was. The letters set the structure of a haunting musical composition by Stephen Davismoon that plays in the room. A projected 3D model of the mural by Michael Mersinis (pictured above), spins on the wall.

Like a great cover on a bad album, I enjoyed this exhibition but not the memory of Gordon’s mural. Despite the riches of documentation provided, the mural still seems stark and craft-less to the point that the two men who were hired to actually paint the thing could barely remember doing so. Such a minimal approach might have worked if the concept was stronger or if the subject matter of the labour movement didn’t have its own visual traditions that Gordon chose to ignore. Gordon’s former lecturer David Harding might have been right in his belief that, when it comes to public art, “context is half the work” but there’s still the other half. The dates allow the mural a piggy-back ride on the significance of past events to which it contributes little besides the necessary amount of ambiguity to satisfy an insider audience’s habit of fondling their own interpretations. All this is brilliantly captured by Stations of the Green, an exhibition I enjoyed very much for many reasons, not least of which was the assistance it gave me in realising my distaste for the mural itself.

Written by Peter Drew

Read more by Peter Drew on Central Station here.

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Lu Sisi is one of five creatives to have recently been awarded the £30k Sky Arts Ignition: Futures Fund (run in partnership with IdeasTap). Here, he gives us a brief insight into his winning project idea…

I’m a digital artist originally from China, I graduated in Visual Communications at the Glasgow School of Art in 2011. I have been working in different areas between visuals, sound and live performance.

Since I graduated from GSA, I have been a London based freelancer working in different areas, such as moving image, composing and graphic design. The reason I applied for the Sky Arts Ignition: Futures Fund is because I want to keep focusing on my own projects rather then doing commercial work everyday.

The project is called The Age of Digital/Analogue, the basic premise allows me to travel throughout the UK, going to different locations to observe old analogue industrial machines, I then record the sounds and videos from each of them, the footage and sound are used to produce an album with a live set performance. The outcome will present itself as a body of work that is part-digital part – analogue. I see this as a combination of film clips (digital) that becomes a part of a live performance (analogue). My approach is one that could be described as a hybrid of various disciplines, whereby I design the visuals, the music and the atmosphere.

I can’t wait wait to start the project! You can follow its progress here.

Take a look at Sisi’s showcased work from last year on Central Station here.

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The Marmite Prize for painting (installation view), 2 March – 6 April 2013. Photography Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

When you find yourself feeling weak and absolute defeat seems inescapable, there’s always one last option; the self defeating strategy. By asserting your own worthlessness you deny your adversaries the satisfaction of your defeat. Like the dog that’s rolled over to wee on itself, there’s no dignity left to destroy and, with nothing left to swing at, your adversaries get bored, leaving you to escape and regroup. In this sense, the self-defeating strategy is a temporary last resort, a nihilistic band-aid, a strategy to survive by, not to live by.

At first glance, self-defeat seems to be the strategy of contemporary painting as demonstrated by the 4th Marmite Prize for Painting and echoed by their dedication to the artist collective ‘BANK’. Why would a contemporary painting exhibition dedicate itself to the memory of BANK? Perhaps there’s some answer to be found in the way BANK described itself:
“talentless moronic, bullying, snide, obnoxious, self-righteous, grungy, pathetic, facile, ungracious, idiotic, childish, self-deprecating, critical, uncritical, naive, radical, cowardly, parasitical, big headed, socially inept, attention seeking, freeloading, innovative, outsiders, party poopers, losers, loudmouths, wannabes, stupid, beautiful, BANK”

From 1991 to 2003 BANK strove to live up to these ideals before finally succumbing to the pressures of infighting. In the words of John Beagles, whose talk on the exhibition described BANK as a reaction against the ‘deadening’ of contemporary art at the hands of ‘Goldsmith careerists’. Why a group of London based artists in 1991 would adopt such a ‘grungy’ persona seems obvious enough, but the decision of a painting exhibition in 2013 to dedicate itself to those grungy artists demands some investigation.

The Marmite Prize for painting (installation view), 2 March – 6 April 2013. Photography Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

Painting, for centuries enjoying status above all other mediums, is today an icon of the past. Since the renaissance, the history of Western art was told as a relay of genius painters until the contemporary era when no painter could ever be called a genius again. Conceptualism took painting apart down to its smallest pieces leaving contemporary painters scratching their heads, trying to put the pieces back together. In truth, painting’s days of glory were numbered the moment that photography was invented. By the time that Conceptualism bumped painting off the main stage, many were glad to see it go. But now, after decades of institutional and theoretical dominance in art, painting is also an icon of a time when artists were still calling the shots.

Displayed ‘democratically’ from largest to smallest, this year’s Marmite Prize for Painting features 32 works from national and international artists have been selected from almost 850 entries to show ‘a full spectrum of approaches in painting.’ Within that spectrum exists the decorative beauty of works by Dan Roach, Julian Brown and Paul Newman but also the stark pessimism of works by Tom Palin, Simon Carter, and James Metsoja. Suitably named after the old English word for a cooking pot, the Marmite Prize is a stew of odd ingredients.

Marie d’Elbee’s Dog Watching Sunset. Photography Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

There’s a large amount of purely abstract work from Yifat Gat, Damien Flood, Playpaint, Amelia Barratt, Clare Price, Andrew Seto but only Marie d’Elbee’s Dog Watching Sunset is balanced with the kind of playfulness which that genre of painting routinely lacks.

Other paintings grab the eye with their likeness to the work of famous painters. Virginia Verran’s P L I N Y looks like a cluttered Miro and Matthew Krishanu’s Two Boys look like they arrived in a box sent by Picasso. There’s a curious variety of suburban landscapes from Greg Rook’s bleak yet suggestive Untitled to Ben Deakin’s mysterious yet meek Hibernator.

Jana van Meerveld’s Bound for Lampedusa. Photography Janet Wilson. Courtesy The Glasgow School of Art.

There’s also a number of naive works from Alison Pilkington and Sabrina Shah that are so nice to look at that you could swear they hadn’t been painted by grown adults. Slightly less naive, and consequently less charming, is Charles William’s figurative effort although Brian Cheeswright’s is at least effective in its disturbance. Jana van Meerveld’s Bound for Lampedusa succeeds in conveying the tragic urgency of its subject matter, Blake Shirley is effectively fun and Alex Hanna painted a roll of bubble wrap.

When exhibitions like the 4th Marmite Prize for Painting attempt to display ‘a full spectrum of approaches in painting’ they inevitably fall prey to the burden of painting’s former glory. In presenting a survey of the entire medium they are obliged to tip their hat in so many different directions that the exhibition as a whole cannot possibly present a push towards any particular orientation. So the medium remains stuck and seemingly defeated. But within that democratic approach exists a principle worth defending.

At its worst, the self-defeating strategy is the impish masochism of the truly beaten but, at its best, self-defeat can be a brilliant ruse. By putting up a front of worthlessness, you can distract your detractors and hide your true worth until it’s grown strong and formidable. This appears to be the case for 4th Marmite Prize for Painting. Like BANK before them, the Marmite Prize’s hidden strength is its staunch autonomy. Curated and judged by artists, the prize reverses the trend of the branded art prizes that aim to remove artists from their communities by turning them into celebrities. Instead the Marmite Prize, with its absurd name, acts as an anti-brand that could never wield more influence than the communities it serves. Without a brand getting in the way we see only the artists and their underdog medium of painting. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for a winning strategy.

Written by Peter Drew

The 4th Marmite Prize for Painting runs until 6 April at The Mackintosh Museum in The Glasgow School of Art.

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