Description
To mark Glasgow Women’s Library’s 21st anniversary, the Library commissioned 21 women artists to create new work inspired by items and artefacts in our collections.
One of each limited edition will join the GWL Archive Collection, while the rest are being sold to raise money for the Library. This is your chance to buy an exclusive artwork and support the Library’s work at the same time!
Claire Barclay, Untitled, 2012
Screenprint, 41.9cm (w) x 59.6cm (h), two editions of 10 diptychs
The featured texts re-appropriate a slogan that was used by the Social Purity Movement, aligned to temperance and women’s suffrage groups in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. Barclay found inspiration from the GWL archives in the collection’s Jus Suffragii magazines and Suffragette memorabilia.
“I am interested in their notion of a ‘blameless life’, when compared to the moral codes which underlie contemporary society, and the sense of hypocrisy and guilt which seems to pervade. The phrase suggests a romanticized ideal of an innate feminine innocence, symbolized by the white flower, sometimes worn by suffragettes. Comparisons between feminine virtue and the purity of nature is outdated and sometimes complacent, but these groups also left a legacy of their struggle for progressive moral and social change which we still find inspiring.”
About Claire Barclay
Claire Barclay lives in Glasgow where she studied at the School of Art in the late 80s and early 90s. Since then, she has exhibited widely, and is recognized for her large scale sculptural installations. In 2003 she represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale, with an installation at the Pilazzo Giustinian-Lolin. Her first retrospective exhibition took place at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh in 2009.
She was a recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award from 2007-2009, and more recently exhibited Shadow Spans at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London as a recipient of the 2010 Bloomberg Commission. Her work explores themes such as the role of craft in contemporary art, contrasts between natural elements and man-made items, and the commoditisation of art as espoused by various lifestyle ideologies.
Other exhibitions include: Pale Heights, 2009, Mudam, Luxembourg, Shifting Ground, 2008, Camden Arts Centre, London, and Fault on the right side, 2007, Kunstverein Braunschweig.
Buy Claire Barclay’s Untitled diptych now
Each pair of prints is available to buy for £500. You can arrange to pick the print up at GWL, or have it sent by post (£20 UK/£40 International). Please select the option you prefer from the drop-down menu above. You can also buy the print directly at GWL.
The prints are also available framed for £660. We are not able to send framed prints by post – we will contact you when the framed print is available to pick up.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.