Empty gallery proves a smash hit with visitors

● Artist refuses to produce art but show goes ahead

An art gallery that lay empty for five months after an exhibitor cancelled her show has attracted more than 100,000 visitors.

Dutch artist Marlie Mul called off her exhibition at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art after citing a lack of funding and issues with health and safety regulations.

But the museum’s curator has been rewarded for the bold call to stay open, with 108,756 people visiting the empty space. A series of 21 billboards were displayed on windows from May to October to explain the cancellation.

An empty art gallery has attracted more than 100,000 visitors after an artist cancelled her show.

Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art said the space left empty after Dutch artist Marlie Mul called off her show has been a surprise hit.

She refused to produce any art for her exhibition, but suggested the show could go on, billed as “This Exhibition Has Been Cancelled”.

Visitors were greeted by 21 billboards on the windows from May to October, explaining the cancellation of the exhibition, which ran for five months.

The gallery’s curator Will Cooper said: “By removing what would traditionally be considered an art object we are instead presenting the gallery as an empty space, giving us a moment to question the value in turning over exhibition after exhibition after exhibition.”

Ms Mul blamed a lack of funding and issues with health and safety regulations for her decision not to display anything other than signs saying the show had been called off.

The Brussels-based artist said: “I specifically told the gal- lery to use the vacant space in which ever way they thought would be most suitable.

“It was their idea to use this as an opportunity for members of the public to apply to do events in the space.”

There were 108,756 visitors to Gallery 1, on GOMA’S ground floor, while the cancelled exhibition was in place.

Renowned artist Frank To said GOMA’S reputation as an international hub for modern art meant visitors would have been keen to see the venue stripped back.

The Perth College lecturer praised an initiative that saw the public invited to propose alternative uses for the space as being another reason for numbers being so high.

Mr To said: “I think Marlie Mul was not questioning the work in the space but the space itself, and that’s where a lot of contemporary art is at.

“Anything to do with taxpayers’ money gives the artist a moral obligation to give something back. The community projects are a reasonable way for artists to be accessing public money.”

But critics have pointed to more than £11,000 of public money being spent on the project. Glasgow Life, the arms-length body that manages the city’s galleries, confirmed £11,500 was allocated as a maximum expenditure, of which £11,077 was spent.

Art, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. This is fabulously demonstrated today with the story from Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art which has revealed the space left empty after Dutch artist Marlie Mul called off has been a surprise hit.

More than 100,000 people have visited to look at, well, nothing in particular really, after the artist pulled out.

Visitors were greeted by 21 billboards on the windows from May to October, explaining the cancellation of the exhibition, which ran for five months.

According to the gallery’s curator Will Cooper: “By removing what would traditionally be considered an art object we are instead presenting the gallery as an empty space, giving us a moment to question the value in turning over exhibition after exhibition after exhibition.”

We’re not sure everyone will buy that as an explanation but full marks for the gallery’s creativity in justifying an exhibition of emptiness.

You have to think – and perhaps hope – though that this particular smash hit exhibition will be very much a one-off.