EVERY art festival has its own specific character, and Glasgow International has always reflected the city’s grassroots art scene. Launched in 2005 and billed as “Scotland’s contemporary art biennial”, it is at heart a Glasgow festival, woven into the fabric of the city. Art pops up in disused buildings, empty shops, people’s flats and – for the 2024 festival – a car, broadcasting sound works on short-wave radio in a project led by Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz.
Back after a three-year hiatus, under new director Richard Birkett, GI continues to combine international and home-grown contemporary art. This year, the programme is somewhat slimmer, with a rigorous selection process for the “open” programme, however, the festival remains fiercely egalitarian: international prizewinners and recent graduates get equal billing.
But all festivals need headliners, and the good news is that many of the larger exhibitions which opened for GI will run for the rest of the summer, offering art fans plenty of time to catch up on anything they missed. And if there are fewer artists of international standing in this GI than in some previous years, the festival is still bursting with international voices and perspectives.
One of the biggest names in this year’s festival is Delaine Le Bas, who is shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize. In ‘Delainia 17071965 Unfolding’ (the number is her date of birth), the British-Romani artist has filled the hangar-like space of Tramway 2 with textiles, embroidery, installations, sculptures and sound in a show which pulsates with energy.
Her work is unashamedly polemical. Almost every surface is covered with writing calling for justice for travellers, women, the environment. It is angry and celebratory at the same time. Le Bas works equally strongly on large and small scales, from her towering goddess sculpture with a snake in each hand to small, exquisite embroideries; the only danger is that of overwhelming.
One of the key themes of the festival – huge in contemporary art at the moment – is the platforming of voices from outside the mainstream, be they travellers, LGBTQ+ artists or simply those from non-Western countries. At Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, the main ground floor space is given over to an important story from the Philippines.
Offerings for Escalante, by collaborative duo Enzo Camacho and Amy Lien, centres on an hour-long film telling the story of the Escalante massacre in 1985 when government forces opened fire on protesting farm workers. Set amongst a group of sculptural reliefs, the film, Langit Lupa (Heaven and Earth) explains the post-colonial background, presents eye-witness accounts of the event and follows a group of contemporary Filipino schoolchildren making their own commemoration.
At Glasgow Print Studio, another pair of collaborators, Rudy Kanhye and Lauren La Rose look at Mauritius in a show called ‘each body wakes up on a wave’. The island was chosen by the British in 1834 for “the great experiment”, a scheme to replace enslaved people with indentured labourers from India. It became a major trafficking point for almost half a million people, one of the largest migrations the world has seen. The work, by Kanhye, La Rose and their collaborators, feels like an early stab at telling a big story, with print series, textile installations and several participatory elements.
The exhibition-as-research-project is also a growing trend, presenting ongoing collaborative work in a form which is still evolving. ‘You Have Not Yet Been Defeated’, the main show at CCA, by House of Mutants, a group of six artists which formed in Dakar, Senegal, and guest curated by Glasgow artist Thomas Abercromby, works on this model. Film, audio and print works are presented along with a mobile library and an events programme; the intention is that the exhibition will change over time and new elements will be added.
Glasgow International has always reflected the city’s grassroots art scene
Collaboration is also an element in [mouthfeel], the show by Glasgow-based artist Camara Taylor in Tramway 5. Taylor’s work draws on the colonial history of Glasgow – one sculpture, ‘Falls of Clyde’ actually flows with dark rum. Taylor’s decaying photographs and redacted text seem to tap into an undercurrent of black stories relating to the city.
Glasgow-based Cathy Wilkes, who represented the UK in the 2019 Venice Biennale, presents a striking body of new work at Hunterian Art Gallery on the theme of conflict – one of five UK commissions supported by the Imperial War Museum’s 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund. Wilkes grew up in Northern Ireland, and takes specific references to the Troubles into a much wider context, looking in particular at how conflict impacts the domestic sphere.
And there’s a surprise in store at Modern Institute, the largest commercial contemporary gallery in Glasgow (and in Scotland), with the tranquil landscape paintings of South Korean artist Kim Bohie. A former Professor of Korean painting, Bohie combines traditional techniques with a modern aesthetic. The gardens and seascapes inspired by her home on the Korean island of Jeju are a welcome interlude in the busyness of the GI, showing that Glasgow’s festival of contemporary art has room for everything – even, occasionally, painting.
:: Delaine Le Bas at Tramway runs until Oct 13; Enzo Camacho & Amy Lien at GoMA until Sep 1; Rudy Kanhye and Lauren La Rose at Glasgow Print Studio until July 27; Thomas Abercromby & House of Mutants at CCA until Aug 31; Camara Taylor at Tramway until Aug 18; Cathy Wilkes at Hunterian until Sep 29; Kim Bohie at Modern Institute until Sep 5.
