WHISTLER in DC & HUDSON. Kiki Smith & Co in Hudson. The FRICK in NYC. GSA, Will Maw & Ashley Cook in Glasgow. 

I did my dissertation on Whistler many years ago. A first love. I have not seen the current major show: An American in London: Whistler & the Thames, in DC, but as my good friend Margaret MacDonald of Glasgow Uni, had a hand in it, it's bound to be good. 

Whistler was 25 when he settled in Victorian London in 1859, depicting the docks, bridges, workers, sailers, clippers, of the greatest port in Europe in all its detailed bustling activity. He lived within sight of the river & over time, captured its many moods. In the 1870s his style became atmospheric, almost abstract. These famous impressionistic "Nocturnes" are among the 80 paintings, etchings, lithos & drypoints which make up this lovely show which focuses solely on the Thames. 

For those not in the US, Glasgow's Hunterian Museum has arguably the world's 2nd best Whistler collection - which also has great portraits. 

It's these portraits, with their subtle, sombre tones & arrangements in grey & black, that have influenced Aline Smithson's striking photo portraits of her 85 year old mother in profile, titled Arrangement in Green & Black. 

"The idea sparked when I came across a small print of Arrangement in Gray & Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother by Whistler at a garage sale. The composition made me ponder the possibilities of using it in a photographic series. Within an hour, at two other yard sales, I happened upon a leopard coat & hat, a cat painting & a chair similar to the one in Whistler's painting. A sign to proceed."

Taken with a Hasselblad, the photographs incorporate traditional photography techniques on hand painted silver gelatin prints. "My patient mother posed for 20 shots before she died. This series allowed us to be together. My mother brought her formal side to the portraits -she was very proper, but at home had a wicked sense of humour & fun. These portraits reflect her dignified self, but also show she was game. The series encapsulated everything I love - searching for props in flea markets, setting up the backgrounds & styling. The whole series was a total joy."

Like Whistler, Smithson is  influenced by the Japanese concept of celebrating a singular object."I tend to isolate subject matter & look for complexity in simple images." 

See these great pix on the poignancy of ageing at Davis Orton Gallery Hudson, NY.  

Hudson has a big advantage for such a small place. It's only 2 hrs from NYC and lots of artists live here abouts. 

Locals, the famous Kiki Smith, & Valerie Hammond, plus Kiki's sister Seton Smith have a superb 3 person show at Historic Hudson's 1812 Plumb- Bronson House. Beautifully installed by the artists themselves, the work both benefits from the amazing architectural spaces & derelict walls, and enlivens the house itself. 

Valerie Hammond

Kiki's large scale drawings of girls - often in pairs - are strangely arresting, and perfectly at home here. Seton's semi-abstract photos of architectural motifs could have been made specially for the house, (they are not!) while Valerie's miniature dresses and spooky hands echo the Victorian setting. 

Kiki Smith installation

Kiki

Quite the most successful installation I have seen in years. 

The elegant Federal-style Bronson House, a National Historic Landmark in need of huge restoration & fundamental repairs, was built in 1812 for a wealthy Hudson merchant who established a tow-boat business on the Hudson River. The house was extended in 1839 & 49, including a spectacular 3-storey elliptical staircase. "The House captures a seminal decade in the development of the Hudson Valley Picturesque, which, during the 1840s & 50s, became the dominant national style.   Abandoned & neglected, it was almost demolished. Now $100,000 matching money is needed to leverage $300,000 in grants.

These 3 artists have contributed a great deal by their show. My only objection is the title - "3 Women Artists". For heavens sake!  I look forward to the next show:  "Three Men Artists"   Hope they make as good a job.

IN NYC the famous FRICK is making waves with a proposal to expand via a new 6 story wing. Expansion is all the rage in the US but maybe not a great idea here. The Frick is a joy because of its relatively small, intimate, town house mansion original setting & garden. True, it's exhibition spaces are not ideal, but SIX stories seems excessive. The recent Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring did of course cause queues along 5th Ave & 70th St, but that's a one-off.

The current enigmatic beauty, Parmigianino's Turkish Slave, (on loan from Parma) is not such a draw. Yet this small show in which she is surrounded by handsome Renaissance men, 2 painted by Titian, another by Bronzino, emphasizes what show-stoppers are in the Frick's own collection. 

Little is known about the lady, except that she is not Turkish & not a slave! Curator Aimee Ng, herself a beauty, hopes the exhibition will throw some light. "I think she's a poet!" There are no Parmigianino portraits in American museums so this is a rare chance.  www.frick.org

 Titian

Back in Glasgow, GSA students affected by the horrendous fire, show a single piece of digital work in the McLellan Galleries. 

Single handed, artist ASHLEY COOK does a great job curating, organising & promoting Scottish printmakers.  She curates Glasgow's The Brunswick Brutti Ma Buoni plus Gandolfi. www.cafegandolfi.com/bar-gandolfi/     in  Glasgow. 

Recent prints there by Will MAW, titled "Half Life"  refer to nuclear physics plus our ever changing global situation. 

 Radio Brazil by Will Maw RWA

A Royal College graduate, with long term connections to Glasgow, Maw has been busy completing two high-profile commissions: a suite of ten prints for Standard Life Investment’s London offices at The Gherkin was completed in April 2013 and a two-year project comprising of a suite of 21 prints and a portfolio edition for Coutts Bank was completed in July of the same year.  The large-scale ‘Departures’ works were made and exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol prior to Maw’s appointment as an Academician in 2013. www.cafegandolfi.com/bar-gandolfi/

 by Ashley Cook 

Ashley's own always enticing, colourful prints are at The Brunswick Brutti Ma Buoni. She is also exhibiting in Barcelona at Sala Ramona Carrer Amistad. Busy girl!

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL?  

In a word disappointing. An event where the spaces are more interesting than the art. How can this be? There are around 70 exhibitions, events & performances all over the city, and this a city crawling with artists. A city moreover now using its artists, ("More Turner Prize nominees than anywhere in the UK") as tourist PR. Glasgow is hosting the Commonwealth Olympics this July, so it's an important year. Let's hope things improve from this limp, slight, slipshod, ineffectual & unfriendly offering. 

Goma

I was hoping for several serious important exhibitions, but much of GI 2014 provides half hearted, banal, derivative work. And the 'international" aspect is thin. Luckily the Modern Institute has captured 2, including NY -based Anne Collier. I also object to second-hand imports like the Govanhill inflatables, seen 2 yrs ago in London. Surely these artists could have been asked or told to make a couple of sculptures relating to Glasgow? 

 And why import from London anyway? People come to GI to see work by Glasgow artists or work by international artists. That's why its called GI!  

Briggait

I realise that it's trendy to be 'immersive" - such an overused word -  but the result can be offensive. Promoted in an extreme form of artspeak, GI is a festival which caters to a small section of the art world & art students, but totally excludes the general public. Glasgow has a huge welcoming heart and a willing population. Yet no allowance has been made for Joe Public.  

Everywhere the SPACES are FAR MORE MEMORABLE than the art! Glasgow is full of architectural gems. Some of these Victorian spaces are truly beautiful, (GoMA's big central hall, Mackintosh's School of Art gallery, the Kibble Palace,) some quirky, (disused swimming baths, an underground carpark), some vast, most old, but occasionally new, white-box-perfect, like Voidoid Archive, only one is a room with a view, (Common Guild,) but there'd even a garden, (at the House for an Art Lover where  Suzanne Dery's cosmology does it no favours.) 

    voidoid archive

The Briggait, originally the city's fish market built in 1873, has a spectacular glass roof which allows light to flood the various sculptures of Reclaimed. The Modern Institute hosts a dramatic diagonal divide (plus music) from Vapour in Debri& while Kendall Koppe also works the diagonal for his display of Lucie Rie ceramic pots.  Ceramics is the province  of Paisley Art Gallery where Robert Saunders worked wonders. There are great Rie ceramics there on show right now.  At the McLellan yet another diagonal, this time constructed with a huge truck tarp, crosses the grandiose Victorian space, (in need of refurbishment.)  Personally I much prefer Avery Singer's fractured geometrics.

Modern Institute

Some of the best installations were to be found in dusty warehouses like the Glue Factory where Michael White  creates an impeccable installation with printed fabrics and upholstered structures &, I'm told, the Pipe Factory too featured a wonderful, fluttering installation by Becky Sik. 

Sik installation photograph by Fiona Watson

Surprisingly GoMA's large-scale installation in its central hall, while politically motivated, also has a magical touch with its science fiction robots and Disney creatures. SWG3's Encadre included much derivative work, while Gabriel Kuri's boring booths are offset by his discs.

Stumpf

Worst efforts: Alex Frost at GPS; Kelvingrove's rarely working videos by Simon Martin; Hydrapangaea at the Botanics. 

Disappointments: the lack of animals in Gareth Moore's Sculpture Studios show. All the Tramway videos. Transmission's long-winded 'Post-Military Cinema'; Mary Mary's ugly pots & vessels afflicted with gigantism. 

Better presentations: Gabriel Kuri's colourful metal floor piece sculpture; Stumpf's walls and shocking pink circles.  Dominic Snyder's Performance. 

Snyder

Best projects: Sik; Balcus & Nieuwenhuize; 

Best international contibution: Christina Ramberg's 1970s early explorations of underwear which led to her famous fetishised bound bodies, at 43 Carlton Place. A return to Glasgow after 34 years. Beautifully housed at elegant 43 Carlton Place, this distinguished Chicago Who artist, (1946-95) was an important first wave US feminist artist. 

Glasgow Open House,

 by Fran Light - not me.
With Glasgow International plus Open House all opening at once, I decided to ask Fran to research some locations and let us know what she thinks about them.
This weekend I will follow up with comments on GI plus a few Open House. Being a critic can be hard on the feet!

Glasgow Open House, a new festival organised by recent GSA graduates, has seen a crop of 32 exhibitions opening their doors in artists’ homes and other non-gallery locations across the city. Here, sculptures nestle in stairwells; unexpected sounds can be found emitting from cupboards; shower curtains double as projection screens. I spent a weekend exploring the offerings.

At 51 Grant St, the garden is filled with (see below) Emma Ewan’s sculptural jigsaw puzzle 'Modular Manner' – great fun in Saturday’s sunshine – whilst an intriguing show by Madeleine Virginia Brown and Stella Stewart at 16 Baliol St explores the relationship between model and artist. A sound piece recounting Brown’s inner monologue whilst life modelling is a particular highlight.

'HALLelujah! 3' sees Janie Nicoll’s hallway at 212 West Princes St given over to a variety of artists working with collage; the space at 1 Royal Terrace (which, despite being the only full-time gallery included in the programme, is nevertheless housed inside a flat) is transformed with the darkly architectural sculptures of Augustus Veinoglou. Outside, I find Catherine Hotchkiss and William Aikman’s interactive installation ‘Scope’, an enormous electronic kaleidoscope housed in the back of a van. Being mobile, Scope will be moving around different venues over the course of the festival – keep track of it via http://www.locatescope.co.uk.

On the Southside, ‘I Bought a Little City’ at 101 Forth St comprises four artists’ responses to Donald Barthelme’s short story of the same name, spanning painting, artist books, video, sculpture and the written word. A couple of blocks away on Leven St, ‘Romantic Possibilities in Modern Flats’ sees artists Andrew Black, Bradley Davies and Nick Thomas cohabiting with the works of invited artists Dan Hays, Paul Housley and Torsten Lauschmann, curating these alongside a selection of their own pieces. The excellent show ‘A Gyrus to Define Us’ at 100 Deanston Drive is well worth the walk, particularly for Jack Farrell and Angel Reid's 'Roaming Colonies' - motorised sculptures, camouflaged cunningly against the bathroom floor.

Artists and curators are on hand at every venue, happy to chat about the work and offer cups of tea, and consequently there aren’t enough hours in the day to see every show. Luckily, the festival will open its doors again next Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 April. With an exciting selection of artists in unorthodox venues, Open House certainly proves that Glasgow’s DIY ethos is alive and well – and, funding permitting, it looks set to be an annual event.

http://glasgowopenhouse.co.uk/#                                       by Fran Lightbound 

 Elizabeth Rowe

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL & Edinburgh's ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY

Today as I was driving to Govanhill Public Baths, (no, not to swim, to see an art installation) I heard Glasgow Life director Bridget McConnell announcing on BBC that part of July's opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will be the demolition of the notorious Red Road flats. Built in the 1950s as part of a maligned housing project, they have long been a big problem.

                                                        Govanhill Baths 

Whether this is a good idea will be vigorously debated, but it certainly shows that Glasgow does things differently in an 'authentic' way! 

 Likewise GI, or Glasgow International, opening tomorrow. This is the 6th biennial of visual arts events and exhibition with this year's ex's leaning heavily on the moving image, film, video, sound side. info@glasgowinternational.org

As is the RSA or Royal Scottish Academy in its 188th annual. The splendid newish downstairs rooms are the film focus, beautifully installed & curated by Ronnie Forbes, and comprehensive in its stretch from Muybridge to recent graduates. Will GI last 188 years?? I fear not.

However back to Govanhill where Anthea Hamilton & Nicholas Byrne show LOVE, a series of enormous inflatables printed with famous images from Brancusi, Maplethorpe, Rodin, etc and of course Robert Indiana. Phallic & sexy, this light-hearted colourful display was first seen in London's Poplar St Baths as part of the 2012 Olympics.  

While GI trumpets "50 shows and 90 events featuring 150 artists", the RSA itself has over 400 exhibits. Well known names like Elizabeth Blackadder, Ian McCulloch, Tracy Mackenna & Alan Davie features alongside young Kyle Noble  & others. However I am not convinced that doing away with ARSA associates & separating the Academicians from 'the rest' is a good idea. Time will tell. 

                                  PA Bruno, Clare & Edi Stark at the RSA

nfo@glasgowinternational.org

Edinburgh also has a start-up Hidden Door Festival in damp cold dark vaults (Bronwen Sleigh the best by far) while Glasgow's Open House - 70 artists showing in 36 unusual citywide venues starts next week. 

 Bronwen

Bridget McConnell's announcement stressed the city's flourishing artistic side & its mass of Tate Turner winners & nominees. Good to hear the visual arts to the fore again. 

NEW YORK is revving up for the Fall/Autumn season!

NEW YORK is revving up for the Fall/Autumn season! Lots of wonderful shows - Magritte, Chagall, Vermeer, George Rickey, (who grew up in Scotland) Robert Indiana, Matisse, Robert Ryman and more.
But there are only a few days left to see the Guggenheim's James Turrell. Ends Sept 25th. He has turned the already breathtaking centre spiral rotunda into a play of computerised light and colour as pink turns to pale mauve becomes intense blue, blood red, gradations of green and then, slowly slowly, dissolves into grey and misty white before beginning the sequence all over again. Purists will like the grey. I rather enjoyed the stronger shades.

Of course there's a problem or two. The young lie flat on the floor and gaze upwards. The old kink their arthritic necks and fight for space on the sloping loungers arrayed around the ellipse. After a while I decided I'd seen enough, my neck hurt, and I moved on to other small, more simple installations from the 1960s and 70s. The main installation cost millions. Theatre designers used to playing with lightbulbs scrims are no doubt envious!
www.guggenheim.org     guggenheim
Aten Reign, the centerpiece of James Turrell’s first exhibition in a New York museum since 1980, recasts the Guggenheim rotunda as an enormous volume filled with shifting artificial & natural light.
Now that the horrid humid heat - 90+ sauna-like weather has gone, I am enjoying NYC's blue blue sky.
But in Scotland u all have a chance for a wonderful week-long Glasgow Open Doors Days.  http://glasgowdoorsopenday.com. Don't miss it! It's wonderful.

KEN CURRIE, 1987 People Palace