Good News for City’s arts scene
Published by Anne Marie Hughes on Sat 09 Jun 12 @ 22:11
The city's thriving arts sector was given yet another boost this week, as the Glasgow School of Art announced it had been awarded a major research grant.
Allocated by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the £122,500 grant is to fund a research project on the renaissance of the visual arts in Glasgow since the late 1970s. Partnered by the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) the grant supports a project to explore the many and diverse influences that have led to what curator Hans Ulrich Obrist termed "The Glasgow Miracle".
In the late 1980s as cultural Glasgow rose phoenix-like from the ashes of its industrial past, a generation of students that included Douglas Gordon, Martin Boyce, Christine Borland, Jim Lambie, Roderick Buchanan, Toby Paterson and more was making waves at The GSA. Just round the corner in Sauchiehall Street Tom McGrath's Third Eye Centre, described by the Guardian as 'a shrine to the avant garde', had become established as the focus for Glasgow's counterculture.
At the same time writer Cordelia Oliver was casting a critical eye over the artistic life of a city that would soon burst on to the international scene as European Capital of Culture Twenty years later that same group of artists continues to live and make work in the city along with new generations of artists attracted by the creative environment in Glasgow that has made it one of the most high profile centres for the visual arts in Europe.
No feat further exemplifies this status than the recent achievements of Martin Boyce, who this year picked up the Turner Prize as the third artist from Glasgow to win the competition.
There are even more exciting developments taking place this year as the city launches an 18 day contemporary art festival which will see work displayed by over 130 different contributors, including a "once-in-a-lifetime" display by Turner Prize winning Glasgow artist Richard Wright. Running between April 20 and May 7 and held across a number of venues around Glasgow, this is yet another jewel in the arts sector's crown and should attract visitors from all over the world.
