Join visual artist Elke Finkenauer, curator and textile artist Sabrina Henry, and writer and programmer Caitlin Merrett King for a roundtable conversation focusing on our current exhibition, Nicole Wermers’ ‘Day Care’.

Roundtable Conversations are intended to offer space for dialogue and the opportunity to develop ideas prompted by our exhibitions and projects. Each invited participant will share a provocation intended for wider discussion with a group of up to ten people. We encourage all participants to join in the discussion; come prepared with thoughts, critiques and questions.

Elke Finkenauer is a visual artist working in sculpture and drawing. She has an MFA from Glasgow School of Art (2015). Recent project ‘BitParts’ (2020–23), was a durational drawing project based on an analogue dataset developed in parallel with research undertaken at Creative Informatics, University of Edinburgh. In 2022 she was awarded the Glasgow Visual Artist and Craft Maker Bursary. She sits on the LUX board of trustees.

Sabrina Henry is a curator, costume, and textile artist. Her curatorial work creates spaces to think through questions related to diasporic presence in Scotland, contributing to the wider discourse around the legacies of colonialism, power, and modernity. Her costume and textile practice focuses on geographies of the Atlantic, using handcraft techniques to create contemporary artefacts that connect pre-colonial traditions with the contemporary British experience. She is Head of Programme at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow.

Caitlin Merrett King studied MLitt Art Writing at Glasgow School of Art (2022). She is Programme Coordinator at David Dale Gallery, coordinates Glasgow Art Map, runs Lunchtime Gallery and is a Director of Good Press. ‘Always Open Always Closed’ (2023), Merrett King’s novella, is published by JOAN.

Event Details

Places are limited and booking is required.

All participants are encouraged join in the discussion.

Location

Capella Building
60 York Street Glasgow, G2 8JX

The Common Guild is on the 7th Floor.

Google Map

Transport Links: Glasgow Central Station is a five minute walk away.

Access

There is ramped access from the street to the ground floor reception.

The 7th floor is accessible by lift from the reception area.

There are double doors in the lift lobby on the 7th floor. Please ring the doorbell for assistance.

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

For the ninth event in the series artist Jeremy Shaw presents a screening of 'Liminals' (2017) followed by a Q&A.

Jeremy Shaw works in a variety of media to explore altered states and the cultural and scientific practices that aspire to map transcendental experience. His works create a post-documentary space in which disparate belief systems and histories are thrown into an interpretive limbo.

Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Quantification Trilogy', Kunstverein in Hamburg and ‘Liminals’, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal. Jeremy participated in the 57th Venice Biennale (2017) and will have a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2020.

Glasgow Film Theatre is an independent cinema that opened more than 40 years ago, taking over the historic Cosmo Cinema’s Rose Street premises. The Cosmo opened in 1939 as the UK’s first purpose built art-house cinema outside of London and was initiated by Scotland’s first film association, The Film Society of Glasgow in order to present cinema as a form of art and entertainment that could contribute to the cultural vigour of the city’s democratic and social life. Today GFT is the most diverse and best publicly attended independent cinema in Scotland and remains a treasured institution.

Event Details

Listen to Jeremy Shaw –

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

For event number eight in the series we are delighted to present Elvira Dyangani Ose.

Elvira Dyangani Ose  is Director of The Showroom, London. She is currently affiliated to the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, the Thought Council at the Fondazione Prada and Tate Modern Advisory Council. Until November 2018, she served as Creative Time Senior Curator, where she most recently curated the 11th  edition of their Summit. Previously, she curated Laura Lima’s 'Horse Takes King', the last iteration of the four-part project, ' Slight Agitation'  at the Fondazione Prada, where since 2015  she has curated exhibitions such as Theaster Gates’s ' True Value', and ' Betye Saar: Uneasy Dancer'.

The Pearce Institute is one of Govan’s most significant historic buildings. Designed by Sir Rowand Anderson and completed in 1906, the Institute was gifted to the working men and women of Govan by Lady Pearce in memory of her late husband, the shipbuilder Sir William Pearce.

The Institute served the local community with reading rooms, a gymnasium and educational activities and continues to support the people of Govan through work with community groups and social organisations.

Project Details

Listen to Elvira Dyangani Ose –

EVENT CANCELLED

We are sorry to advise that next week’s talk with artists Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme is cancelled.

This is due to unforeseen changes in the visa application process, which has made the timing impossible. We will be bringing Basel & Ruanne to Glasgow at a later date in 2020, so please look out for details in our newsletter.

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme work together across a range of sound, image, text, installation and performance practices. Their practice is engaged in the intersections between performativity, political imaginaries, the body and virtuality. Across their works they probe a contemporary landscape marked by seemingly perpetual crisis and an endless ‘present’, one that is shaped by a politics of desire and disaster. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘And Yet My Mask is Powerful’, Kunstverein in Hamburg (2018). They were awarded the Sharjah Biennial Prize 2015.

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

For our sixth talk in the series, we were delighted to present the Glasgow-based architect, Jude Barber.

Jude Barber is a director at Collective Architecture. The 48-strong, employee-owned and controlled studio is founded on principles of creative freedom, equity and sustainability. In 2018 Collective Architecture was named 2018 AJ Architect of the Year. Together, the team has delivered several key civic and cultural projects around the UK including the new home for Collective, Edinburgh, at the City Observatory on Calton Hill, which was awarded a RIBA National Award 2019.

Langside Halls were designed by John Gibson in 1847. It was originally the National Bank of Scotland in Queen Street, but the buidling was dismantled and moved brick by brick to its present location in 1902.

Project Details

Listen to Jude Barber –

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

Jamie Fobert is a London-based architect and designer, recently announced as winner of the BD Architect of the Year Gold Award 2019. Since establishing Jamie Fobert Architects in 1996, he has consistently produced innovative and inspiring architecture in projects ranging from individual houses to high quality retail and significant public buildings for the arts. During this time, the practice has won a number of major public commissions for cultural organisations including the new Tate St Ives, which opened to great public acclaim in October 2017, extensions to Kettle’s Yard Gallery and Charleston House, both of which opened to the public last year and most recently, The National Portrait Gallery.

Mackintosh Queens Cross is one of Glasgow's hidden architectural gems. Built in 1898, it is the only church designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Project Details

Listen to Jamie Fobert –

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being' runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

Dorothea von Hantelmann is Professor of Art and Society at Bard College Berlin. Her main fields of research are contemporary art and theory as well as the history and theory of exhibitions. Among her publications are 'How to Do Things with Art' (JRP|Editions, 2010) and 'Notes on the Exhibition' (Hatje Cantz, 2012).

City of Glasgow College City Campus was designed by Reiach & Hall and Michael Laird Architects. The building opened in 2016 and was awarded the RIBA Award for Scotland 2017 and RIBA National Award 2017. It was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2017.

Project Details

Listen to Dorothea von Hantelmann –

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being’ runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

Stefan Kalmár joined the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, as Director in January 2017 and is part of the artistic team for Manifesta 13 Marseille 2020. He was previously Executive Director & Curator at Artists Space, New York; Director of Kunstverein München; Director of the Institute of Visual Culture, Cambridge; and Artistic Director at Cubitt Gallery, London.

Trades Hall of Glasgow was designed by Robert Adam in 1791–1794. The medieval cathedral aside, Trades Hall is the oldest building in Glasgow still in regular use for its original purpose.

Project Details

Listen to Stefan Kalmàr

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being’ runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

The title is borrowed from the sub-title of a text by Swiss artist Rémy Zaugg (1943 – 2005), ‘The Art Museum of My Dreams’, written in 1986, translated into English in 2013 and now out of print.

Stephanie Macdonald co-founded 6a architects. with Tom Emerson in 2001. She has developed the practice’s collaboration with artists, designers, scientists and manufacturers in building projects encompassing exhibitions, products and furniture alongside these. Stephanie talks about 6a’s recent projects, which include South London Gallery Fire Station and Milton Keynes Gallery, which opens later this month.

The Merchants House of Glasgow is one of the oldest and most important bodies in the City of Glasgow. Its current premises, on the corner of George Square and West George Street, was designed by John Burnet and completed in 1877.

Project Details

Listen to Stephanie Macdonald –

'A Place for the Work and the Human Being’ runs throughout 2019 and takes place in a range of venues, new and old, around Glasgow. The series explores the needs, expectations and possibilities of the space for art today and speakers include artists, architects, curators and others.

The title is borrowed from the subtitle of a text by Swiss artist Rémy Zaugg (1943 – 2005), ‘The Art Museum of My Dreams’, written in 1986, translated into English in 2013 and now out of print.

Nicole Wermers talks about her recent work and her comprehensive solo show, ‘Women Between Buildings’, which took place at Kunstverein in Hamburg in 2018. Nicole was shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2015 and her work was shown at Tramway, Glasgow. She is currently a professor of sculpture, ceramics and glass at Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

The Humanities Lecture Theatre is the University of Glasgow’s only lecture theatre that remains largely unchanged since its construction in 1870, maintaining its original Victorian amphitheatre layout, wood panelling and 17th century benches from the University's original campus on High Street.

Project Details

Listen to Nicole Wermers –

Minty Donald, Artist and Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice at the University of Glasgow, discusses Janice Kerbel’s synchronised swimming performance ‘Sink' (2018).

Minty considers ‘Sink’ in relation to artists’ documentation of live performance through performance scores and reconstructions.

Event Details

Listen to Minty Donald –

Tiffany Jenkins is author of the critically acclaimed 'Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There' and regularly writes for The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Spectator and The Independent.

Her talk takes us through the history of debates over cultural ownership, cultural appropriation, and explains why no one culture owns culture.

Event Details

Listen to Tiffany Jenkins –

Martin Clark, currently Director of Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, and newly announced Director of Camden Arts Centre talks about Steven Claydon’s exhibition as well as previous projects Clark and Claydon have worked on together.

These included a large-scale group exhibition 'The Noing Uv It', co-curated with Claydon in 2015 and drawing its title from the 1980 Russell Hoban novel, 'Riddley Walker'; and a new video and sound commission, 'Infra-idol Assembly', that Claydon produced for last year's Art Sheffield 2016, for which Clark was Artistic Director.

Further Info

Eflux Announcement, ‘The Noing Uv It’ (2015)

Steven Claydon, ‘Infra-idol Assembly’, Art Sheffield 2016

Event Details

Listen to Martin Clark on Steven Claydon –

The second event for Maria Fusco's project 'Dialecty’ is a talk by Dr Lauren Hall-Lew, Reader in Sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Hall-Lew’s talk focuses on dialect, authenticity, and credibility, with a brief introduction to the mechanics of dialect analysis.

'Dialecty' is a new project conceived by writer Maria Fusco considering the critical uses of vernacular forms of speaking and writing. The project explores the occurrences and potential uses of dialect words, syntax and language within the field of contemporary art and question traditional orthodoxies of creative and critical writing within contemporary art.

Events with Lisa Robertson, Dr Lauren Hall-Lew and Scott Hames took place in 2017 and a series of chapbooks with writing by Harry Josephine Giles & Martin O’Leary, Robert McClean, Helen Nisbet, Lisa Robertson, Adam Pendleton and Natasha Soobramanien & Luke Williams have been co-published by Book Works and The Common Guild, as part of Co-series.

Further Info

Additional Links

The Dialecty chapbooks series is available from Bookworks

Event Details

Listen to Dr Lauren Hall-Lew –

Matthew Fox is Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow. He currently holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship and is writing a book on Roman ideas of materialism.

Taking inspiration from Steven Claydon’s work, Fox discusses the relationship between mythology and materiality in Claydon’s sculptural installations.

Event Details

Listen to Matthew Fox –

The first event for Maria Fusco's project 'Dialecty' is a public reading and discussion by cult Canadian poet Lisa Robertson, who discussed the construction of vernacular voice amidst the abolishment of a lyric culture: "I think the voice is the great Baroque pearl of this catastrophe that is the political human dump."

'Dialecty' has been conceived by writer Maria Fusco to consider the critical uses of vernacular forms of speaking and writing. The project explores the occurrences and potential uses of dialect words, syntax and language within the field of contemporary art and questions traditional orthodoxies of creative and critical writing within contemporary art.

Events with Lisa Robertson, Dr Lauren Hall-Lew and Scott Hames took place in 2017 and a series of chapbooks with writing by Harry Josephine Giles & Martin O’Leary, Robert McClean, Helen Nisbet, Lisa Robertson, Adam Pendleton and Natasha Soobramanien & Luke Williams have been co-published by Book Works and The Common Guild, as part of Co-series.

Further Info

Additional Links

The ‘Dialecty’ chapbooks series is available from Bookworks

Event Details

Listen to Lisa Robertson –

Presented by The Common Guild, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, ‘Art and its Theatrical Turn’ was an informal symposium that considered the reasons for, and implications of, the many recent projects that have combined visual art, scripted drama and theatrical performance.

Discussions included questions of contingency, presence and collective encounter and experience. Rather than ‘degenerating as it approaches the condition of theatre’*, is art in fact inherently theatrical?

With contributions from: Katrina Brown, Director, The Common Guild; Dr. Graham Eatough, theatre maker, co-founder of Suspect Culture, and Lecturer in Theatre Studies at University of Glasgow; Dr. Clare Finburgh, Senior Lecturer Drama & Theatre, University of Kent; Maria Fusco, Senior Chancellor’s Fellow – Reader and Director of Research & Knowledge Exchange, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh; Prof. Joe Kelleher, Professor Drama, Theatre & Performance, University of Roehampton; Dr. Dominic Paterson, Lecturer in History of Art, University of Glasgow; Convener: Prof. Carl Lavery, Professor Theatre & Performance, University of Glasgow.

*Michael Fried in ‘Art and Objecthood’, Artforum, 1967

The Common Guild, in collaboration with Mount Stuart, are pleased to host a talk by artist Kate Davis. The event accompanies the group exhibition 'That Which Remains' at Mount Stuart house, an extraordinary neo-Gothic building surrounded by extensive grounds on the island of Bute, off the west coast of Scotland.

Further Info

Additional Links

Mount Stuart

Event Details

Listen to Kate Davis here –

As part of the context for Simon Starling's 'At Twilight', Dr. Silber talks about sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and his peers in the early 20th century. The brilliant young sculptor, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, formed a close friendship with Ezra Pound in 1913-14, creating a monumental portrait in stone on which Starling’s mask of Ezra Pound is based. With Wyndham Lewis, they were the provocative leaders of the Vorticist group. When Gaudier-Brzeska was killed in 1915, Pound published a memoir of his work just a year later. This talk explores their relationship and the wider context of the pre-war literary and artistic avant-garde in London.

Dr. Evelyn Silber is Honorary Professorial Research Fellow (History of Art) at the University of Glasgow. She is a former Director of the Hunterian, University of Glasgow, also of Leeds Museums and Galleries, and Assistant Director at Birmingham Museums and Galleries. Evelyn has lived in Glasgow for over 14 years and is involved in several local heritage and cultural tourism projects.

Event Details

Listen to Dr. Evelyn Silber –

Dr. Chad Elias, Assistant Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, offers his thoughts on Zaatari’s work, and talks about the importance of collecting and archiving photographic images in the Middle East. Elias focuses on Zaatari's work with the Arab Image Foundation and his overlapping artistic engagement with the archive.

Event Details

Listen to Dr Chad Elias –

In conjunction with the Radical Film Network Festival (29 April – 2 May), Prof. Carl Lavery leads a discussion with Prof. Dimitris Eleftheriotis around some key, influential, radical film works, including Jean Genet’s notorious film, ‘Un Chant d’Amour’ (made in 1950; released 1975), set in a prison; and Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Ici et Ailleurs’ (1976), made using a mixture of film and video. Discussed in relation to Akram Zaatari's work, and his film '28 Nights and a Poem'.

Event Details

Listen to Carl Lavery and Dimitris Eleftheriotis –

November Paynter, Associate Director of Research and Programs, SALT, Istanbul, offers her thoughts on Akram Zaatari’s work and talks about his interest in archaeology and heritage.

Paynter focuses on Zaatari’s research into the excavation of the Alexander Sarcophogus and his ongoing commitment to historical inquiry.

In advance of her project with The Common Guild, Ulla von Brandenburg talks about the development of her work as part of our ‘Primers’ Series. Her talk is followed by a Q&A with Carl Lavery, Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow.

Described as ‘a play for five actors and a chorus', Sink Down Mountain, Rise Up Valley is inspired by the rituals of the Saint-Simonian commune, founded in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution. The movement, to which von Brandenburg was drawn by their progressive attitudes to female equality in society, sought to eradicate any kind of inherited privilege. Instead they proposed a levelling of society, alluded to by the title of the piece.

Ulla von Brandenburg (b. 1974 in Karlsruhe, Germany) lives and works in Paris. Her practice as an artist constitutes a rich range of media, stitching together drawing, painting, installation, performance and film. This approach is founded by her desire to remove boundaries from both material and time in her work, producing timeless experiences nourished by sources drawn from across European cultural heritage.

‘Sink Down Mountain, Rise Up Valley’ will be presented as a live promenade performance in the particular setting of Langside Hall on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 January 2016.

Event Details

‘Primers' offer an opportunity to hear from artists developing projects with The Common Guild and are presented in collaboration with the University of Glasgow.

Listen to Ulla von Brandenburg here –

Dr. Tamara Trodd is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Edinburgh, with a specialism in film and photography. She is editor of the book, 'Screen/Space: The Projected Image in Contemporary Art' and author of the new book, 'The Art of Mechanical Reproduction: Technology and Aesthetics, from Duchamp to the Digital', which is out now with the University of Chicago Press. She has published previously on the work of Thomas Demand, with an essay in the journal Art History, entitled 'Deforming Pictures'. Tamara offers her thoughts on Thomas Demand’s Dailies series, in relation to the question of realism in contemporary art.

Event Details

Listen to Dr. Tamara Trodd –