Generation is a series of exhibitions of 25 years of Scottish contemporary art. The exhibitions are being shown across Scotland between March and November 2014, and we went to see the ones being displayed at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art as part of the Seeing Things project.
Douglas Gordon: Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now
“Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now” is an installation of more than a hundred old TV sets. Each monitor shows a picture (some still, others moving) and some have sounds. It is an abstract perspective on every film Gordon has made in the past fifteen years. Everyone has a different reaction to each video – a few of the people in the group found the whole installation disturbing, but I enjoyed the ones that had smaller movements (ripples on water, a swaying curtain), because they forced you to look closely at the details of the image. There is a lot to take in, because you can’t really just look at one screen, you have to watch about four or five at once, so we could have spent the whole trip at this one installation!
Sara Barker: For myself and strangers
“For myself and strangers” is a beautiful exhibition made up of eight sculptures. The background to each piece is as important as
the artwork itself, because it gives a different atmosphere each time. The shapes sometimes look like a 3D painting, which makes you want to walk around the whole thing and view it from different angles, to see if they fall into place to make up a pattern. Most people in our group really enjoyed this, although there was a lot of debate about what each one represented!
Moyna Flannigan: Stare
Our group found “Stare” the most controversial. It is an exhibition of Flannigan’s paintings of women, which are all based on the story of Adam and Eve. They are all quite unnerving, and are painted in dark colours or strange shades of yellow. Most show very thin women in tight clothes and our group were unsure whether or not this was bad because it only portrays one type of woman, or good because it is addressing a stereotypical view of what people believe women should look like. Personally, I think that it although it shows women in a very negative way, it makes a statement about how weare often unrealistically portrayed in our culture and in the media.
Nathan Coley: The Lamp of Sacrifice
This was the most popular among our group. It is a collection of models of the 286 churches that are listed under “places of worship” in the Edinburgh Yellow Pages. They are made out of cardboard, so each building is simplified and shown without all its decorations. Everyone found this the most engaging exhibition, because it invites you to recognise some of the places you’ve seen, but without the added clutter that you associate with it. Our group really liked it, although some people disliked the fact that it was only representative of Christian places of worship.
Overall, I really enjoyed this trip because it gave me a fantastic opportunity to discuss themes and ideas with others, which is a skill I would like to develop. It was also interesting just to spend some time with a group of people I might not normally come into contact with.
