Press

A year on from its glittering relaunch, Glasgow’s CCA stands accused of alienating local artists.

Hanneline Visnes and Lucy Skaer – CCA, Glasgow

Switchspace and Freakshow – The Chateau, Glasgow

It’s a little bit over a year since Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) reopened its slickly refurbished doors. At the time, the ¬£10.2m redeveloped powerhouse met with rapturous applause from the Sunday supplements. But behind the success stories there have been rumblings that the CCA is being run as a nepotistic puppet institution, exclusively recycling the wares of Scandinavia and London’s ICA.

The lavish re-launch night when superannuated London DJs and a third-rate punk act singularly failed to stir Glasgow’s radically sagacious clubbers – was heralded by many as a prophetic fiasco. Parachuting artists in from London to fill the programme has also been treated with skepticism – understandably, many local artists regard this as a patronizing slight on their own international reputations.

The CCA has further alienated itself from Glasgow’s cultural community by employing tradesmen rather than artists to install shows, charging for talks and events, and turning the café bar into a minimalist restaurant for corporate hire. In the name of retaining funding by meeting the complex educational and economic requirements enforced by government rules, the CCA has dumped its fabled quirky cosiness for Third Way mores, pricing itself out of its main market. ‘The spaces were better before,’ says Glasgow artist Sorcha Dallas, ‘it’s very corporate now, it’s a shame.’ ‘There used to be lap-dancers from Edinburgh,’ adds another of the city’s artists, Neil Bickerton.

Cultural priorities have changed dramatically during the CCA’s hibernation. This is no bad thing, audiences move on, but what remains worrying is the lack of interest from local artists. ‘If nobody went, nobody noticed,’ notes Variant magazine’s Leigh French. French isn’t quick to condemn, however, pointing out that the perceived London/Nordic bias of the CCA has not really been at the expense of Glasgow artists. Reciprocal relationships have resulted, which have allowed Glasgow artists to exhibit abroad, while permitting Glaswegians to see something new.

This fact still doesn’t solve the CCA’s image problem, however. There are practical problems too. Given its pressing need to charge for events, the CCA can’t afford for anything to go wrong. This makes it appear stiff to potential patrons, precisely what it doesn’t want. Rather than gripe, local artists are organizing events elsewhere; Lucy McKenzie, for example, has take to running free ‘Flourish Nights’ at Flourish in Robertson Street, consisting of performances, animation, VJs and bands. ‘The events are based on trust so if it goes wrong, that’s okay,’ she says.

The CCA is finding it tough to deliver the same mix, a fluid interpretation of what’s happening in the arts now. However, it is presently trying to make amends for its perceived anti-parochialism. The current installation by Glasgow based artists Lucy Skaer and Hanneline Visnes, ‘A Hundred Flowers, A Hundred Birds, A hundred Children in Late Spring and Early Summer’, is a deliberate attempt to rebrand the venue as a home for emerging local talent. It is also one of the best shows it has put on since the relaunch.

Skaer’s large enamel and gold leaf drawings are beautifully balanced, dynamic compositions depicting reclining figures. The figures bleed into surroundings that include oriental goldfish bowls and miniature cities inspired by the lavish setting of the Peace Palace in The Hague. Resembling partly filled colouring books; the seismic drawings produce an intense vibrato effect. They have a power reminiscent of spooky children’s psychodramas such as The Tomorrow People.

Visnes paints small irregularly shaped works that, like Skaer’s art, have their own logic and iconography. Heraldry and memento mori such as candles and skulls dominate, and there are numerous references to the precious curios such as pearls, exotic tigers and peacocks, rare feathers and flowers found in Dutch Painting.

It is a magical exhibition, but it is one nevertheless regarded by some as another CCA ploy to save money on curation, transportation and accommodation. It seems, frustratingly, that the CCA can do no right. On Friday night, the exodus from the CCA was gathered at The Chateau, the penultimate floor of an old dilapidated Gorbals warehouse at 45 Bridge Street. An enormous throng descended to see work by ten artists and listen to music by Franz Ferdinand and Uncle John and Whitelock, Scatter and Park Attack. Leigh French was there, and told me enthusiastically: ‘Glasgow needed this for so long. It’s good to see so many people from so many different places together for once.’

The Chateau is the latest venue to be opened by Switchspace, a grass-roots organisation that exhibits work in domestic spaces. Curators Sorcha Dallas and Marianne Greated are trying to secure support for the venture by fundraising. Entrance donations of ¬£2 towards cleaning the building do not please everyone, but all rightly seemed to think it was worth climbing the stairs for Alex Frost’s self-portrait alone. A small gathering managed to cram into a tiny dark room to witness a make shift performance featuring sparklers and silver foil by Edinburgh artists Kim Coleman and Susea Green. There was also a chance to see large collaborative work between Neil Bickerton and Lorna Macintyre – who occasionally work under the name Complexity – just before it was trampled over by the Mob.

Most of the artists here show regularly in Glasgow. In this sense, The Chateau is not trying to model itself as a radical alternative. Indeed, the lo-fi work on display could just have easily been shown at the CCA (and vice versa). Dallas and Greated are hoping that The Chateau will become a permanent space. Glasgow’s existing art ghetto in King Street, home to Transmission, Glasgow Print Studio and the Intermedia Gallery currently seems ordained for gentrification. The Gorbals then might be destined to become Scotland’s new South Bank.