Tenement flats, a bowling club, a disused church and the toilets of Glasgow’s Central Station will all be playing host to contemporary art this bank holiday weekend as part of the second annual Glasgow Openhouse Art Festival.
The artist-led event takes place from 2-4 May, with the work of over 200 artists from Glasgow and further afield taking over 50 non-gallery spaces across Scotland’s largest city. Many of the shows will be presented in artists’ homes.
“Tenements make up a large proportion of participating venues,” say the festival’s organisers, “with artists’ exhibiting/performing in their front rooms, bathrooms, basements and garden sheds.”
Responding to an open call, which required artists to source their own venue in the city, the 2015 edition of the festival has expanded significantly, with more than twice as many artists taking part this year than in 2014.
Public realm
The three-day festival also includes a number of public realm exhibitions, including the work of six artists at Glasgow Botanic Gardens in the city’s West End and a site-specific project by nine students from Glasgow Kelvin College at North Kelvin Meadow.
A group exhibition at Willowbank Bowling Club curated by Glasgow-based artist Janie Nicoll – a Paying Artists Regional Advocate and president of the Scottish Artists Union – sees nine artists responding to the theme of bowling clubs and the game of lawn bowls.
At Central Station, Nives Scotto will be exhibiting the private messages of commuters – sent while travelling – in the railway station’s public toilets, part of the artist’s ongoing interest in the idea of ‘in-between’, public/private spaces.
Venues will be identified by specially commissioned flags made in partnership with COLOUR HOTEL and Project Ability, and the festival will also include a series of events and organised art walks across the city.
There’s more art in artists’ homes at the other end of the UK this weekend, as Brighton’s biannual Artists’ Open Houses festival begins.
Taking place across four weekends in May and with an emphasis on buying as well as viewing, the Brighton event features work in a variety of media and includes jewellery, ceramics, textiles, painting, sculpture and printmaking.
Glasgow Openhouse Art Festival, 2-4 May 2015. www.glasgowopenhouse.co.uk
