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.

In October, with your help, the gallery space will be turned into a free cafe and platform for sharing of food, ideas, seeds and produce, run by artists and backed by the resources of community food initiatives, gardeners and allotment communities.

Soup and bread is a universal dish, simple and sustaining; sharing in eating, a universal activity. Made from locally sourced, fresh and seasonal vegetables, artists will cook soup (and more besides!) and bake bread in the gallery. The working kitchen will be fully open to the dining facilities – cooking as a kind of performance.

See also: Rirkrit Tiravanija.

A slightly off-putting title for a show, maybe, but it fits. The three artists, Steven Anderson, Dougie Morland and Javier Ferro don’t have much in common on the surface, but the more time you spend with their work, the more the links between the three become apparent.

The best stuff is by Dougie, I think - he has made a great big looming wing thing based on a drawing by a psychiatric patient, that has a really black front and a softly glowing back. The result is pretty disconcerting, as if the wing is a shadow casting its own shadow made of light. He’s done a couple of drawings too, of branks—tongue torture devices used to silence and punish uppity women in the 17th Century—one of which looks like a Rorschach inkblot test with only one possible interpretation. That all sounds a wee bit goth written out, but it’s really an attempt to draw together ideas around the collective unconscious, psychoanalysis and superstition. Disclaimer: I’ve known Dougie for yonks, but if I thought his work was bibble, I would definitely say so!

Steve Anderson’s work is right up my street, too. He’s a bit like an ethnographer, or an anthropological archaeologist of the present, and looks at the social interactions around an absent performance by collecting up broken bits and bobs—snapped guitar strings, busted drumsticks—from the floors of rehearsal rooms, and photographing folk as they arrive at a gig. I missed his own performance on opening night, but it seems he’s working on wordless folk songs made up of overheard exclamations, which is pretty intriguing.

Javier Ferro is the weak link, really, but in this context his work stands up, especially the concrete table with an unfinished letter on it, reading, weirdly, “Dearest, I have to think about you everywhere I am. I am therefore writing to you from my boss’ office whom I’m representing at the moment”.

So, yeah, good stuff: lots of fizzing little connections between the work, which all touches on potential futures, half-remembered pasts and undefined relationships. And, for once, this is a show about memory—the current de facto curatorial justification for every sodding group exhibition you see—that’s actually about memory!

Update: My review of the show for The Herald.

Addi by Simon Periton, 2006, blue mirrored perspex.

I’ve posted about Simon before: back in 2003 I interviewed him in advance of a show at Inverleith House.

The current show is on until February 24th; my review will run in The Herald this Friday.

Neilson, Youngs & Kneale on Vimeo

Heavy, eh?

Neilson & Youngs were the highlight of a great Volcanic Tongue night, which also featured Kneale playing a weirdly rave-ish set, and Opaque doing their ‘masked highwaymen of feedback drone’ thing. The latter, excellent as usual, look dangerously like a supergroup nowadays—formerly a two-piece, members now include Nackt Insekten, Noma and frontperson/Kovorox label-founder Kylie Minoise (not their real names).

Also of note: inspired by a bloke in the crowd who stank like an old whore’s duvet, Guy, Len, Dave Clark and myself formulated a new entertainment concept, drawing on the immersive, often distressing, qualities of noise, but limited to olfactory sensation. We call it nase.

I am still revising this one act play which will be produced at Oran Mor leisure centre, Glasgow, in October 2006, in the lunchtime Play, Pie and Pint series. This is how it stands on Monday 26th June this year. Anyone wishing to produce or re-print this after the October production is here given my permission – Alasdair Gray’s permission – to do so without informing me and without payment, and I hereby also permit anyone to re-write this play in a dialect or language they prefer, with any changes and additions they like, if they give it a different title and announce that their version is based upon my play.

If you’re having trouble with the video above, or are reading via RSS, try viewing it on Vimeo.

For your information: the entertainments begin at 8pm, and early on we’ve been playing lots of drone, noise, folk, prog, spoken word and esoteric hooting, largely for our own benefit, before moving on to skronk, punk, rock ‘n’ roll, dancehall, dubstep, very gay disco and outright populist selections - my Addicted To Love covers medley must be heard to be believed! - once the punters turn up. As if that wasn’t enough, you get first dibs on Optimo queue tickets, too.

So, join us this coming Sunday for our final stint, and limber up for the return of Spastachrist on April 16th, when he will be joined by William Bennet from out of noise whores Whitehouse, playing an uncharachteristic Italo Disco DJ set.

The Institute for Electronic Artists is an organisation that has been established to aid, encourage and promote the continued development of electronic music and art. We provide a forum for producers of electronic art to share ideas, network and build relationships with other artists and people with related interests, such as promoters, DJs, VJs, etc.

Our events feature music, video and images produced by the artists present. Artists are invited to bring along there work on CD-R to be played or displayed and corresponding artwork and composer details are displayed using a projector.

Laudable aims, and I like that they’re taking the risk of playing music and video by anyone who pitches up.

The Institute also have a spot on Subcity Radio, every Monday at 10pm. After a quick listen to a recent show [.m3u stream], they seem to be defining ‘electronic music’ fairly broadly, but steering well clear of the wiggy fringes (everything I’ve heard so far has drums).

Perhaps I’ll pop along to the next event and foist a CD of me hooting into a load of broken effects pedals on them.