Human Interest

I just filed a review of Inspi­ra­tions, an exhi­bi­tion at Art­De­Caf, a café in Glas­gow, and then did a quick Google to see if it has been reviewed else­where. It hasn’t, but the cov­er­age the show received in advance of its open­ing is interesting.

Pieces in the Times and the Sunday Herald both focus on artist Shahin Mem­ishi. Seek­ing asylum in Glas­gow, having been forced to flee his native Kosovo, Mem­ishi (an art teacher) had some­thing of a rev­e­la­tion on seeing work by the so-​called New Glas­gow Boys for the first time, and this show matches his por­traits of the artists he admires with exam­ples of their work.

I’m absolutely not having a go at the writ­ers of these pieces. The cura­to­r­ial con­ceit of show­ing a rel­a­tively unknown artist along­side the old guard who inspired him is intrigu­ing, the story of Mem­ishi find­ing suc­cour in their work is a good, moving one, and a show fea­tur­ing work by Steven Camp­bell, Ken Currie and Peter Howson is cer­tainly news­wor­thy. Also news­wor­thy is the fact that the works by these artists are from a pri­vate col­lec­tion, and are all for sale. Hmmn.

Anyway, here’s the thing: it’s an awful show. Awful. There’s some good stuff, sure, but none of it is by Mem­ishi, and the hang is far­ci­cal. Half the paint­ings are at wonky angles, a few are sat on the floor, and a decent set of Peter Howson draw­ings is placed so high on the wall that you’d need to stand on a chair to get a good look at them. One of Memishi’s paint­ings is set on an easel right in front of a Ken Currie, obscur­ing it com­pletely. The late Steven Campbell’s name is spelled ‘Stephen’, on the label beside his paint­ing and in the title of Memishi’s por­trait. Really. To me, that looks more like an insult to Currie and Camp­bell than a trib­ute. And so do Memishi’s paint­ings, how­ever well-​meant they may be. They don’t make you want to claw your eyes out in horror or any­thing, but they’re the sort of thing you see in those gallery-​cum-​shops that sell inof­fen­sive stuff by local artists along­side nov­elty tea-​towels and jew­ellry made by hob­by­ist house­wives. I’m amazed that his sub­jects, having seen his work, agreed to sit for him (Camp­bell didn’t, for obvi­ous rea­sons, but I’m told the rest did). And I nearly got the gig­gles when read­ing in the Times that Mem­ishi is, accord­ing to Ally Thomp­son, ‘one of a new breed of Euro­pean artists gal­vanis­ing the city’s art scene’. This is not the case.

So, the show doesn’t deserve the oxygen of pub­lic­ity - it should’ve been suf­fo­cated at birth! - but it drew more press than any exhi­bi­tion in Scot­land since the big Emin ret­ro­spec­tive and Campbell’s posthu­mous show­ing of new work.

My point, I sup­pose, is that it’s depress­ing that the visual arts only make the news pages when there’s a whiff of scan­dal, a record-​breaking auc­tion or, as in this case, a heart-​warming tale to be told. These things don’t have very much to do with art. My other point is that you shouldn’t waste your time vis­it­ing Art­De­Caf this month. Not for the art, anyway, though I feel duty bound to report that they make a pretty decent plate of scram­bled eggs.

Update: My review of the show was spiked, for rea­sons I prob­a­bly shouldn’t relate here, but you can read it on my Work weblog, if you like.

Posted at 3pm on 02/09/08 by Jack Mottram to the art category.
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Tags: art, glasgow, media, painting