Artist David Shrigley has designed the new mascot for Scottish soccer club Partick Thistle, a disturbingly rendered sun icon with a comically menacing face, a figure that some in the media have called “terrifying.” (more…)
David Shrigley at Anton Kern Gallery (Installation View)
An ‘Open’ sign outside David Shrigley’s new exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery greets visitors, announcing that the gallery is ready for business. In his sixth solo show with the gallery, the Glasgow-based artist brings together seventy-eight drawings, along with two sculptural pieces and a video. Coming in two different sizes, these ink and acrylic drawings on paper deliver the artist’s signature, whimsical technique, putting him in a distinct place in today’s art world.
The Guardian reviews the ongoing rebuilding efforts at the Glasgow School of Art, after the school’s Mackintosh library was destroyed in last year’s massive blaze. A fundraising campaign has already launched to help finance a new building, but a debate over rebuilding the space or starting over is currently drawing considerable attention. “[Mackintosh] was driven by a lifelong search for new forms in architecture and technology and was never a copyist,” architecture professor Alan Dunlop says. “I have no doubt that he would reject the approach of building a replica.” (more…)
Peter Doig’s Country-Rock (Wing-Mirror) will hit the auction block for the first time next week at Sotheby’s in London, and is estimated to bring in $15 million. The work, part of Doig’s Country-Rock series, depicts a view of the mysterious, rainbow clad tunnel in Canada from the passenger seat of a car. (more…)
More than 100 conservators have volunteered to aid in the restoration of the Glasgow School of Art building destroyed by fire late last week, coming from across the UK and abroad to answer a call for help from the school. “We have people offering to source freezers, drying facilities and secure storage for collections,” Alison Richmond of Conservation Organization Icon adding that some volunteers are familiar with the building and its collection. “We have this small army of expert helpers and are standing by.” (more…)
Scottish-born painter Alan Davie passed away last week at the age of 93. Davie’s expressionistic, abstract canvases earned him considerable attention during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and was considered as a major influence on the work of David Hockney. The artist’s work is currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Tate Britain. “It’s an urge, an intensity, a kind of sexual need,” Mr. Davie said recently in an interview with The Telegraph. “I don’t practice painting or drawing as an art, in the sense of artifice, of making an imitation of something. It’s something I do from an inner compulsion, that has to come out.” (more…)
An article in The Art Newspaper analyzes the potential vote on Scottish Independence this year, and the potential impacts an independent Scotland may have on the nation’s art collection. If Scotland changes its tax structure to more heavily impact the wealthy, some are worried that lending collectors are likely to remove their works from Scottish museums, moving them south. The National Galleries of Scotland board chair Ben Thomson, however, is more optimistic. “We are extremely confident that we will continue to enjoy very positive support from the Scottish government for our ongoing collaborations with private collectors,” he says. (more…)
Peter Doig, I Think it’s Time (1982-83), via Michael Werner
Currently on view at Michael Werner Gallery in New York is an exhibition of works by Scottish artist Peter Doig, meant to be indicative of his formative years, including several works that have never been on public display before. Displaying the artist’s signature, boundary-breaking approach, the show is a fitting complement for anyone interested in the painter.
Martin Creed, Work No. 1690: Self-portrait (2013), Courtesy Hauser & Wirth and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise
On November 8th, Hauser & Wirth and Gavin Brown’s enterprise opened parallel solo exhibitions in New York City featuring works by Scottish artist Martin Creed. The exhibitions will present new works in addition to selections from the past thirty years of his career. The display will remain on view at the two New York locations through December 21st 2013.
Martin Creed at Gavin Brown (Installation View), via Gavin Brown
In the buildup to his upcoming show at the Scottish National Galleries, Peter Doig recently sat down with The Telegraph to discuss his work, his high prices at auction, and the multifaceted appearance of much of his work. “You try to create scenarios and atmospheres in your paintings,” Doig says. “I don’t set out to be deliberately sinister, but I always wanted to make paintings that told stories and suggested things.” (more…)
Painter Peter Doig is profiled in the New York Times, in advance of his retrospective exhibition at the Scottish National Galleries in Edinburgh. Speaking from a rented studio in Manhattan, the artist discusses his new paintings, his studio and home in Trinidad, and the start-stop nature of his creative process. “Sometimes you get so frustrated, you end up washing off or scraping off what you spent hours or days applying,” he said. “By going backward, you see something you could have never achieved by going forward.” (more…)
Continuing its recent policy to hold the Turner Prize presentation ceremony outside of London on alternate years, the Tate Britain has announced that the 2015 awards ceremony will be held for the first time in Glasgow, Scotland at the Tramway Arts Centre. This will be the fourth time that the Turner Prize will be awarded outside of London, and could in fact be the first Turner Prize awarded outside of the UK, pending the results of the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum.
