Only two days until British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet opens in Glasgow.  Alongside the Gallery of Modern Art and Tramway, we’ll be taking part in this three month exhibition, showing works by Becky Beasley, Alasdair Gray, Christian Marclay, Simon Martin, Nathaniel Mellors, The Otolith Group, Mick Peter, Edgar Schmitz, Wolfgang Tillmans, Phoebe Unwin, Anja Kirschner & David Panos and a performance by Tris Vonna-Michell. Highlights include the UK premiere of The Otolith Group’s Hydra Decapita and a 24 hour screening of Marclay’s The Clock.

Installation is coming to an end this week, with our team hard at it to get the place spick and span for opening on Friday.  Here’s a sneak peek at the galleries during the install period.

We’ve been working hard during the good weather to make some good progress at the Westhorn allotment.  Unfortunately the weeds are steadily growing back after months of clearing the site, but we’re continuing to plough away at it and have now erected some raised beds and barrel beds.  If you have good tips for keeping weeds at bay, leave us some comments, or better still, get involved.

These are some images of the site from four days of hard graft.

On Tuesday 19th January, Plantation Kids Club from Plantation Productions in Govan packed out the CCA cinema with a preview of their most recent production ‘Charlie’. The film was written, shot and edited by the members of the club over three months and was an interesting take on the dangers that drugs can incurr.  DC and Angela from Plantation led discussions about the film and there was a question and answer session with the young filmmakers.  CCA look forward to Plantations next visit in March.

One month into the new year and we’re busy programming away to give you some top notch exhibitions, screenings, performances and events well into 2010 and beyond.  As we can’t always be relied upon to quench the diverse appetites of you, our informed, intellectual audience (flattery will get us everywhere… we hope…), the question that’s always playing on our minds is ‘what would you like to see?’  So, we’d love to hear from you to see what you’re interested in and what you’d like to see later this year at CCA.  Answers on a postcard to…

Just to keep everyone informed, CCA will be closing its doors for the festive season on Christmas Eve at 6pm.  We will then reopen on Tuesday 5 January 2010, from 10am (gallery from 11am as usual).

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and thank you for supporting us in 2009 – we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year!

From all at CCA

Congratulations to Richard Wright on his Turner Prize win last night!  To check out Richard’s latest work, come down to see Votive, the current exhibition here at CCA open 5 – 24 December and 5 – 30 January.

This is a book I picked up last week that looks at Israel’s Architecture of Occupation – a primarily spatial investigation of the transformation of the occupied territories of Palestine via geographical, urban, territorial and architectural conceptions. I mention it here because I think the theme has a lot in common with the artists’ work currently on display in This land is Your Land at the CCA. In descriptions of settlement processes undertaken by pioneering Zionist zealots, among other players, throughout the territory Eyal Weizman paints a picture of a chaotic and hostile borderland that echoes Ursula Biemann’s Sahara Chronicle in its depiction of the impossible complexities that accompany the very concept of national border creation and the ruthless process of partition that it entails. In Biemann’s work abstract mapping technologies of a highly military nature are contrasted with, both, the realities of barren and inhospitable landscape – shifting continuously out of reach of the technologies and people charged with policing it – and human stories of survival that have taken them necessarily beyond questions of national identity. Next door Mark Boulos’ work is also one of aggressive contrast that challenges the comfortable neutrality of the viewer by placing them between accusations of a materially dispossessed Nigerian tribe fighting against the theft of petroleum resources and the abstracted numerical world of the American financial trade floor that reaps the benefits of this extraction. Bouchra Khalli’s work is also a deceptively straight forward exploration of displacement and migration that juxtaposes the simplicity of drawing a red line on a map with the difficulties undergone within the narratives that accompany the video footage.

As much as politics and conscience would like to see the marking out and use of land as a simple two sided issue with separation and abstraction as the main tools of engagement what these artists create in the installation space and the author on the pages of Hollow Land is a multidimensional picture that requires a more careful engagement and ultimately seems to question the sanity of drawing lines at all in an ever shifting ground.

The exhibition is on until the end of the week and the book can be found on the shelves of Aye Aye books in the CCA’s foyer space.

Post by: Caroline

Making Space: toward a public artwork for Glasgow Women’s Library

Two 6-month part-time artist residencies, based within Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) are now open for applications. The residencies offer an exciting opportunity for two artists to work with the rich resources of Glasgow Women’s Library – staff, learners, users and archive – to achieve the aims and focus of Making space: toward a public artwork for GWL.

Funded by the Scottish Arts Council’s Public Art Fund, the two Artist in Residence opportunities are offered to develop ideas, visuals and participatory working methods that can inform GWL’s ambitions to realise a public artwork for their new premises at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow.  The residencies will support the artists’ investigation of women’s histories and representation in the public realm, as well as potential means of engagement and consultation with diverse constituents of GWL, including black and minority ethnic women’s groups, adult literacy and numeracy groups, Women Make History groups, homelessness and violence against women projects, and the GWL’s archive and wider resources.

Deadline for applications: 24 July 2009
Interviews will be held on: 27 or 28 August 2009

For further details please download a job description, cover sheet and application information from Glasgow Women’s Library or call GWL on 0141 552 8345 or e-mail: info@womenslibrary.org.uk

Please note that due to the nature of this project, this post is open to women only under Section 7 (ii) d&e of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

Glasgow Women

Well, the growing season has well and truly begun.  Last month we decided to get all green fingered in anticipation of this summer’s This Land is Your Land project.  With seeds in their thousands and a boot full of compost, we set about turning many of CCA’s nooks and crannies into a germination haven.  One month on and it’s like the Day of the Triffids in here… Part of the summer project will see us give away masses of vegetable plants, grown by our own fair hands here at CCA.  To get the ball rolling, we’re already giving away some runner bean plants, so if you haven’t already adopted one, we’re down to our last 10 so get down quickly and claim yours.  If you’re one of the lucky few to have established your runner bean at home already, keep in touch with us here and let us know how your garden grows.  Pretty maids optional.

Runner Bean

Check out the special Valentines Day menu at CCA’s Courtyard Cafe Bar…