A Broad Tent
Mitchell Miller
Now in its tenth year, the works on display at Glasgow’s Art Fair’05 confirmed the current trend in favor of painting over conceptual or installation work. But it remains an eclectic, heterodox affair–exhibitors range from small, committed community arts groups such as Impact Arts, working with homeless kids in the city’s east end, to the big London galleries and exhibitors from as far as New Zealand.
For Auckland’s Whitespace there is the chance to access European art markets and re-site its artists (most of whom claim Scottish descent) in a different hemisphere. Commerce is of course, the engine of any arts fair and it is no different here. The massive tent in the city’s George Square offers the same white walls to all sellers, with paintings duly smothered over every feasible surface by the 46 exhibitors. But brisk business is augmented by a lively program of exhibitions and workshops, making full use of nearby locations such as the Merchant City, home to many of the finest artist’s studios and workshops. The "Talking Art" portion of the fair enables studios, researchers and experts to share with the public all stages and aspects of the visual arts, as business, vocation and cultural presence.
Being a tenth anniversary, there is a sense of family reunion (and as the Scottish art world is small, this can sometimes be literally so…); and the selection this year is more historical and retrospective than the boldness of previous years. Yet there are signs of evolution too. The celebrated figurative artist and Glasgow School of Art Graduate Craig Mullholland was the main draw, detailing his evolution as an artist from painter to animator and film artist, and how he continues to explore and explode the anxieties behind the process of representation. Mulholland is known for his interrogation of the romantic sensibility, but Gerard Burns (Tracey McNee gallery) finds it a comfortable, fruitful approach. His Girl with Wolves evokes that other popular but critically alienated Glasgow artist Jack Vettriano. His oils are slick, the human figures hyper-realistic yet romantically juxtaposed. Is Girl with Wolves a joke against the dogs-playing-poker/Franklin mint genre, or an exploitation of it? And what brand of nostalgia does Glasgow artist Stuart McCaffer play off, or against, in his recreation of a 1969 Scottish living room (outer-walls, pebble-dash and dog-eared map of the Cairngorms included)?
The work of Glasgow artist Peter Howson has also, in recent years, become tinged with nostalgia, what with the decay of the industrial world his sculptural, mega-jawed male subjects inhabited. The greatest achievements of Scottish Art were arguably sculptural or architectural, the two greatest Scottish artists being the architects C.R Mackintosh and Alexander Thomson. With the exception of Laura Antebi’s Sketch of a Horse, a mare woven from strands of galvanised steel, there was no large-scale sculpture. Form without solidity was something of a sculptural trend. Bona Fide, Paul Toren’s small, but perfectly formed wire-mesh torso blended Ikea with classical beauty.
For Lois Carson, sculpture–in this case, a miniature Michelangelo’s David–is a blank canvas on which to daub kilts, cycling shorts and other contemporary cuts. Carson is part of the Young Female & Scottish touring exhibition (27April — 2 August) organized by The Cynthia Corbett Galleries. Most similar to Carson are Laura Barnes’ installations and prints based on clothing, including Pants, a panel of miniature multi-coloured briefs. More contemplative are the weathered and fired wood panels of Alex Cooper, or the strangely transcendent acrylic landscapes of Helen McLuckie. Originally from New York, Corbett is an ex-investment banker turned dealer based in London, an infectious mix of enthusiasm and business acumen. She has opened her home as a gallery and as a result, takes a familial approach to art and collecting. "Every artist I show, I have a relationship with," says Corbett. "I have to connect with every piece I show, whether through its humor, or its politics, after all, they come into my home. It’s something I have to be able to defend."
