Sorcha Dallas

The city in the grip of art fever with the Glasgow International festival and the Glasgow Art Fair. VICKY DAVIDSON went to find out more on one of the free bus tours that are being offered to whisk people around the city’s art hot-spots, taking in some of the best and most unusual art events.

**11:00* – Our coach departs from George Square and navigates the one-way system to the art school. While programme coordinator Kirstie Skinner gives an introduction to the five sites that make up the itinerary for the Glasgow North tour.

Arriving at Glasgow School of Art in Renfrew street, no less than Paul Thomson, drummer with Franz Ferdinand, passes us as we make our way upstairs to the ‘Campbell’s Soup’ exhibition.

It features work by John Byrne, Alisdair Gray and Steven Campbell, who 20 years ago helped to establish Scotland on the map of contemporary art.

‘Spin’ programme coordinator Kirstie Skinner highlights some of the themes of the exhibition – and gives us 10 minutes to take in as much as we can.

She tells me that we’ll se varied and wonderful things on our trip today. ‘In a two-and-a-half hour tour,’ she says ‘the variety is fantastic from a big grand gallery to a flat.’

The tour was first held last year and was so popular that they decided to expand the itineraries and number of tours this year.

‘People loved it,’ she says. ‘In each venue they met interesting people who gave an introduction to the space and talked about the work on show.’

‘We try to open it out a bit so that you can see more clearly what you are looking at, and give people the information they need to be able to navigate round the work.’

One of the other tours takes in Alex Frost’s giant self-portrait head, made from millions of mosaic tiles. It lies in a waste ground beyond the Gallowgate.

This unlikely location is what’s known as an ‘off-site’ exhibit, part of the show curated by Sorcha Dallas.

You can only see it as part of the bus tour or by special arrangement with Sorcha’s gallery in St Margaret place, in the Saltmarket.

11:25 – We bustle out of the Art School and downhill to the Centre for Contemporary Art on Sauchiehall Street.

There, we catch some kids pasting up their efforts on a wall dedicated to ‘fly-posting’ art.

CCA curator Ellie Carpenter tells us that the Risk exhibition involves over 30 artists who are pushing for political change by working through art and activism.

It is being held over several floors. The caravan, through the back on the ground floor, proves popular, but the war room draws you in first.

It’s behind a rose-strewn camouflage screen with maps, screeds of carefully chosen text, video footage and pictures.

It’s all very energetic and hands-on and, despite its serious message, its actually fun.

11:50 – We’ve huffed up the hill of Dalhousie Street to the bus but have lost a member of our troupe in the CCA, so Kirstie fills us in on the next stop – the intriguing Mary Mary gallery – while a search party is dispatched. Regrouped, we set off for the east end.

If you think about art in Glasgow, you think about the leafy west-end, bohemian Merchant City or the lofty GoMA in the city centre. The east end never springs to mind – but that’s where we’re headed.

Some of the bus party get fretful as we head along Duke Street and up Alexandra Park Street.

We arrive at the bottom of a tenement close. Kirstie rings the bell and we go up two flights to the Mary Mary gallery, in the flat belonging to Hannah Robertson.

She has decanted her telly and all her belongings into one cramped bedroom in order to stage an exhibition by Glasgow artist Nick Evans and, and Tobias Buche, from Berlin.

As we’re shown into the airy front room, we’re confronted by a group of yellow, pink and brown blobs that look like gigantic Cheerios breakfast cereal. With twiggy arms sticking out, they’re faintly human and Kirstie says they are a ‘family’ watching slogans on a TV screen embedded in what looks like a massive cornflake-cake.

Hannah tells me that Nick is in the kitchen glueing a bit of the art back together after it was broken at the launch party the night before.

I spotted washing drying over the old-fashioned pulley as we went into the room next door to see Tobias’s exhibition of photocopied art, pasted onto white boards.

Hannah, an art school graduate, says she bought the flat last November with the aim of showing young Scottish-based artists who haven’t had a major show yet, and also bring international artists to Glasgow. As she lets us out she begs us to leave quietly – so as not to disturb the neighbours.

12:30 – It’s not easy to keep so many people to such a tight schedule, so we’re running a little late when we arrive at the Market gallery, on Duke Street, for a film titled Revisions in Relative Time.

I have passed the place hundreds of times and never knew it was there.

I’m amazed to learn that more than 200 artists live in the area. This excellent gallery is run by a seven-strong committee of up-and-coming young artists. The space is provided by the Reidvale Housing Assosiation.

There is a silent film by artist Elin Jockobsdottir, commissioned by the Lourve in Paris, plus some Ikea-ish pictures of furniture.

Next door there’s an unsettling film by Will Duke that includes sweeping footage of a concrete building not far up the road, and a disturbing, screeching soundtrack. We emerge a little shaken and get on the bus for the last leg.

12:55 – It’s up to the Mitchell Library for the finale, titled ‘City Dreaming’, and none of us was expecting this. It’s an utter contrast from the dark, intense confines of the Market gallery show.

We find the elegant Reading Room – which, one of our party remarks, has been sadly missed since it was converted into a space for exhibitions and talks – dotted with huge, off-white weather balloons suspended high in the air, pinned to the ground by gleaming brass spheres.

It takes your breath away and makes you feel a sense of elation while also giving you a weird sensation of the space above you.

Luckily for us, it’s the launch party, so artist Steven Hurrell is on hand and chats to our group at length about it.

He’s regarded as one of Scotland’s leading artists and last month he was one of the 10 winners of a prestigious Creative Scotland Award.

We learn it wasn’t all plain sailing, with a few of the balloons bursting as he inflated them.

But it looks perfect in the sunlight melting through the roof.

We’re finally ushered out, schedules slipping fast, to get back on the bus, which drops us off at George Square only 10 minutes or so behind the estimated 1:20pm finishing time.

It’s been a whistle-stop race round the sites, but most people say they’ll definitely go back to visit their favorites for longer.

A few have already vowed to go on all three Spin tours, which take in different galleries and exhibitions in different parts of the city.

My verdict? This art malarky is definitely not stuffy, it’s not pretentious … and it’s definitely loads of fun.