Gabriel Kuri 'All probability resolves into form'

All Probability Resolves Into Form (GI)

When the Glasgow International comes around, I always think of The Common Guild. I like it because it is a bit like going round to someone's house, only they have got a load of art scattered about the place. It feels very Glaswegian: the casual familiarity with high concept visual art, and using spaces that are a bit of a change from the clean white space of the traditional gallery. 

Their GI entry is from Gabriel Kuri: it is called All probability resolves into form. Press release begins...

4 April - 7 June 2014

21 Woodlands Terrace, Glasgow, G3 6DF

An exhibition of new work by the internationally acclaimed Mexican artist Gabriel Kuri and the first presentation of his work in Scotland. Kuri is known for works that use ordinary objects and materials to address the very nature of sculpture and explore the relationship between use and value.

Kuri regularly combines commonplace objects with his own sculptural components to create installations that, as Kate Bush writes, “refuse any hierarchy between the stuff of every day and the stuff of art”. His exhibition at The Common Guild will involve the juxtaposition of a series of sculptural forms with found and donated materials. Items of basic necessity - such as blankets, sleeping bags and toiletries - will be arranged within a group of formal elements made by the artist, highlighting the use, value and ownership of objects as they wait to be put to use.

Please Donate!
As part of Gabriel Kuri's exhibition, The Common Guild is seeking donations of materials of basic necessity. All donations will be passed on to the GLAD Action Network and the Unity Centre, Glasgow, and other organisations dealing with homelessness and disaster.

We are looking for:
• sleeping bags

• clean blankets and linen (sheets, pillow-cases, towels)
• toiletries: soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes (unused)

Unfortunately we cannot accept any items other than those listed above.

Please bring donations to:

The Common Guild
21 Woodlands Terrace
Glasgow, G3 6DF

From: 17 - 28 March
Between: 10am - 6pm Monday – Friday
or call 0141 428 3022 to arrange collection.

Three from the Inbox

So - new Anatomy Night ahead. It's episode four for the post-punk Live Art Vaudeville Jam, with a selection of artists from feminist film makers (Phoebe Cottam's Beautiful Art Feminist) through boylesque beauties (Tom Harlow, who is doing turn from his new one man show) to piano bashers (Will Pickvance hints that he might just be taking one apart, either literally or metaphorically).

The last time out was a grab bag of experiments, comic interludes and singing arses (literally not metaphorically): Oli Benton's short film Walk was a nasty flashback to those evenings out that never seem to end, while Eddy Dreadnaught did exactly what he promised by a dark pantomime singalong. Glasgow has traditionally had the edge on Edinburgh when it comes to the sort of antics Anatomy arranges, but Summerhall's surprising seasonal success suggests the east is encouraging eager experimentalists.  

ANATOMY #4:
Silence/Noise/Silence
Friday 8th March
7.45 – 11pm
Summerhall, Edinburgh

Getting back to No Mean City, The Common Guild takes a break from its excitement around Scotland's cheeky link to Venice to present an exhibition on The Foamy Saliva of a Horse. It's the first solo show in Scotland by New York's Carol Bove and is a remixed version of the installation she had at the 2011 Venice Biennale. 

As always, what looks like an interesting exhibition has a nice bit of International Art English to decode: here we go.

"Featuring a collection of found and hand-made objects, such as a piece of driftwood suspended in a polished bronze frame, the installation brings together seemingly random (and even contradictory) objects that, while natural in origin, call to mind the artifice of cultural value and meaning.

Bove presents each item in a way that heightens the potential symbolism of the disparate objects and the relationships between them. The meticulous composition highlights the cultural, spiritual, mystical and even psychological associations of each object, offering multi-layered meanings that operate on aesthetic and cultural levels.

Bove’s earlier works have included a number of socially significant texts and images that reference popular culture more explicitly. Spiritual guides that were popular in the 70s sit alongside images from the pages of Playboy magazines and art history books from a similar period, drawing parallels between potency of their content and their moment of currency."

To put it another way: juxtaposing objects with other, perhaps unexpected objects, can suggest associations that don't happen when the objects in question are in their usual environment. 

Carol Bove 'The Foamy Saliva of a Horse'

20 April to 29 June 2013
21 Woodlands Terrace, Glasgow, G3 6DF

Heading north, Bgroup are presenting a new show by Ben Wright at Aberdeen's The Lemon Tree. While this press release isn't so guilty of IAE, it's tough to work out what this will be like: "Just As We Are begins at walking pace and culminates in an invitation for audiences to consider joining the spectacular finale." 

Just As We Are
Thursday 28th March, 7pm
The Lemon Tree