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New generation unveils work at GSA fine art degree shows
EACH spring, like bluebells in a wood, a host of degree shows spring up at art schools around the land. Every graduating student in every art school creates and curates their own exhibition. The show is assessed and degrees are awarded accordingly. It’s a chance for students’ friends, family and the wider public to see what kind of art is being created by a new generation of artists and designers.
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) annual undergraduate degree show, which opens to the public today, features work from graduating students across the School of Design, School of Fine Art, Innovation School and the Mackintosh School of Architecture. These take place at two sites; the school’s Renfrew Street campus and the Tontine building in the Trongate area. Running concurrently is the annual Master of Fine Art (MFA) degree show at The Glue Factory in north Glasgow.
For this review, I am focusing on GSA’s School of Fine Art degree show. This school has many famous alumni, including Jenny Saville, whose work is currently the subject of a major exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Famously, almost every single piece of work in Saville’s degree show in 1992 sold to Charles Saatchi, and she subsequently emerged as a part of the Young British Artists group, alongside the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. When the doors of the Tontine open to the public today, there will already be a few red dots on the walls, indicating a rash of sales. I could even take a punt at predicting which of the 139 emerging artists’ work will fly. To this end; check out Georgia Green, Maya Hollis, Angus Fernie, Georgia Grinter, Molly Hankinson, Harry Clitheroe, Lucy Clitheroe, Marina Renee-Cemmick, Flora Lawrence and Rosa Quadrelli for wall-based sellable work.
I can’t see a Saatchi-style scoop-up happening. Saville and her fellow New Glasgow Girls (Alison Watt, Rosemary Beaton, Karen Strang, Lesley Banks, Helen Flockhart) and Boys (Peter Howson, Steven Campbell, Adrian Wiszniewski, Steven Conroy, Ken Currie) emerged at the tail end of a rigorous art education in the practical, technical and complex aspects of drawing, painting and mark-making.
Time and tide has moved on and the definition of fine art has shifted like fine sand. Making art in the 21st century is now about creating a visual concept which works on a host of levels, including – but not exclusively – painting, drawing and sculpture.
It’s not that the emerging artists in art schools are any less creative or talented, it’s more that the goalposts have moved elsewhere and aren’t coming back any time soon. Taking a walk round GSA’s School of Fine Art degree show in 2018, I am struck by the fact many of the graduating students are turning to traditional craft to find their voice.
The much-missed George Wyllie – a multi-media artist before the term was invented – was fond of the expression “beautifully crude” to describe work. By this he meant it was unpolished and functional yet thought-provoking with a veneer of gallus beauty. This phrase kept coming to me at the Tontine.
This year’s cohort is crammed with examples of students eager to make things. I was especially taken with Giles Watkins’ Tea Culture, which builds on the idea of the ceremonies around taking tea. He has made some beautiful objects in the process, including crockery, teapots, jugs, tables and seats with ceramic shelves on which to park
your bottom, coupled with beautifully crude joinery work to take the weight.
Megan Truman has created a raft of plain off-white ceramic pots stacked in row-upon-row of crude wooden shelving. Some of the pots are functional, while some are a bit askew.
Rosa Quadrelli has turned her undoubted talents as a figurative artist to a mix of puppetry and print-making with a Gothic horror twist.
Elsewhere Esther Gamsu has built a life-sized papier-mache horse on castors alongside a giant pair of hand-sewn crimson cowboy boots made of felt. On the wall, there’s an oversized print of Dolly Parton’s Hands and a short film of a Dolly Parton impersonator plays in the background.
Puppetry and papier-mache looms large. Gavin Reid has created a busy installation presided over by a life-sized doll of himself. His world is stuffed with a variety of objects including a “signed” copy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four; a Fisher Price cassette player playing George Formby, the Stranglers and the Damned; a globe with a tape stuck across the Middle East stating Don’t Destroy My World; and a clunky papier-mache volcano with a sign sticking out of the lava stating: AN EXHIBITION IS JUST A FANCY DECORATED ROOM FOR YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS TO TALK IN.
Humour is to the fore in many students’ work. Caitlin Higgins has created life-sized squishy gym apparatus. On the wall is an oversized print of four Mortons rolls. That’s the kind of gym I’d go to.
There’s real physicality in Georgia Thornton’s Where I Sat installation. For this, she has made rough takeaway prints sitting on a plywood chest. On a plywood back wall, she has an array of small white painted wooden kids-sized chairs with yellow straps across the back. The idea is you take the chairs for a wee walk and drop them back.
Jonathan Kirkwood has collaborated with his autistic brother to create an oddly-affecting show made up of a wall of posters which merge text with crude drawings. Other posters and objects are dotted around the space. One depicts a wonky ball and the words “germs from a sneeze”. Underneath, there are objects which take the germ theme further into 3-D form. Again, he has used joinery skills to make “plinths” for his work.
Politics is not hugely to the fore in the show as a whole. That said, there are several references to the #metoo movement. The most powerful voice belongs to Lucy Lamort. Outside her show, she has posted a disclaimer notice, stating it contains: “… some scenes/themes that some viewers may find distressing.”
Simple and affecting, Lamort has created three text-based wall hangings, three text-based prints – all in bright primary colours. There’s also two separate films featuring news coverage involving sexual assault and clips in which women tell their own stories. I have seen it several times but the footage of MP Mhairi Black telling her story of online misogynistic abuse at a Westminster debate was profoundly shocking, surrounded as I was by the simple “text messages” hung around the walls. These include; RAPE TAUGHT AS A FORM OF FLATTERY, MEN “EXPRESS CONCERN” WOMEN WHINE AND YOUR SYMPATHY IS PERFORMATIVE.
As with any degree show, I will add my own disclaimer. Everyone sees the world differently. Take a chance and see if there’s anything here which floats your boat. To that end, there is actually a boat on show, made of wood and canvas by Paul Gallagher. Accompanied by a sound piece, it is beautiful and crude at the same time.
The Glasgow School of Art School of Fine Art degree show 2018, Tontine Building, 20 Trongate, Glasgow, G1 5NA, gsa.ac.uk/life/ gsa-events/events/d/degree-show-2018/. From today until June 8, Sat-Tue,10am-7pm, WedThu, 10am-8pm Having visited Cample Line outside Thornhill in Dumfries and Galloway a few months ago, I can’t recommend this new arts space enough. Its programme is curated by Tina Fiske, a former lecturer in contemporary art at Glasgow University. The space is currently home to an exhibition of work by filmmaker and sound artist, Mark Lyken.
A new work, New Town New Wave, is on show alongside Lyken’s 2017 film Taifeng and the Motorway Saint. New Town New Wave was developed by Lyken following a residency he undertook in November 2017 at the former KBS (Korean Broadcast System) building in Namwon, South Korea.
The work is installed together with Namwon Broadcasts, 2017, a 20-minute soundwork recorded during an improvised performance in the KBS basement machine room.
Lyken, who lives locally, will give a live performance followed by a Q&A on June 10 and lead a sound workshop for young people the following weekend.
CAMPLE LINE, Cample Mill, Thornhill, DG3 5HD, 01848 331000, campleline.org.uk. Until June 16. Open Thu-Sat, 10am-3pm. Free