Visual art

Ten galleries and visual art institutions in Scotland

Tramway, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Fruitmarket Gallery and more

National Galleries of Scotland. Four sites across Edinburgh house the national collections. Among the permanent highlights are work by Titian, Rembrandt and the great surrealists. Gallery of Modern Art. A grand neo-classical building in the middle of…

Three upcoming Scottish photographers to watch

Anna Bruce, Philip Reid and Stanley Allen

Anna Bruce. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Bruce is interested in the layering of ideas and textures, as well as an appreciation of the sculptural quality of the light beam. Most recently, she documented a cultural project called Industri-us on…

Andrew Kerr: Delmess was Charged

An easy-to-like exhibition of the Glasgow-based artists paper-based works

It is hard not to like these acrylic works on paper. Unframed and pinned to the white wall they sit comfortably, owning the space, yet not too precious. Pigments in a muted tonal range have been moved around on the small-scale canvas in an automative…

Dazzle of Fog - Film City, Glasgow, Sat 29 Sep

‘Ambisonic’ cinema soundtracks from Lafoden, Alex Smoke, Konx-Om-Pax and more

Billed as a ‘unique, experimental audio/visual event that platforms ambisonic, immersive sound technology’, Dazzle of Fog gathered the work of seven Glasgow artists, mixing live performances, film and installations over four specially commissioned…

Audio art festival Sonica to showcase works by Luke Fowler, Claudia Molitor and Janek Schaefer

From Arika’s Kill Your Timid Notion to Glasgow International, sound and vision have become increasingly promiscuous bedfellows over the last decade. Throw in an increased sense of theatricality to sound-based art, and all the elements are in place for…

Glasgow painter Gordon Picken discusses his artistic influences and practices

What was the first exhibition you went to see? In the 1970s, my mother took me to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow and pointed out Salvador Dali’s ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’. A controversial painting in its day, it was attacked…

Laura Aldridge: Things Held Inside / The New Sea

Experiments in fabric imbued with a sense of unfulfillment

Like protest banners or sails on ships, a range of fabrics have been sewn and stitched together, screenprinted and hand painted. Stretched across planted poles and anchored down with heavy concrete, their seeming functionality – of protest placards…

Artbeat - Andrew Houston

Q&A with the artist and curator of a group exhibition exploring sexual identities as part of Glasgay

What was the first exhibition you went to see? The first exhibition I went to see, or at least can clearly remember was the permanent collection of Lucien Freud paintings at Chatsworth house in Cheshire when I was 13. At this point I was still very…

The Jill Todd Photography Award to recognise Scotland's finest new photographic talent

When budding photographer Jill Todd tragically died in 2010, after receiving a first-class honours degree in Photography and Film the year before, her family and friends were determined to do something in her memory, and this year launch The Jill Todd…

Donald Judd: Drawings 1963-93

It’s hard to decide how this display of work by the late American sculptor Donald Judd should be approached. As an insight into the working practice of one of the most celebrated minimalist designers of the 20th century, an artist whose hard-edged and…

Dexter Sinister: Identity

A highly polished video installation lecture on the rise of corporate identities

Identity is a new three-screened video installation at Tramway by a design duo known as Dexter Sinister. The audio-video installation is a highly polished lecture on the rise of corporate identities, and, specifically, their use by arts organisations.

Central Station: Kathryn Ho

Kathryn Ho is an artist and designer from Edinburgh who is currently expanding her horizons in London. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee with a BA (Hons) in Illustration. Her current work focuses on the order and patterns…

Again, a Time Machine

Touring exhibition celebrating radical art practices of the late 20th century

As print media gasps its last, non-profit publisher and arts organisation Book Works holds firm on that last unoccupied mound. Again, a Time Machine is a touring exhibition and curio paean to radical art practices of the late 20th century. Anarchic…

Alastair Frazer, curator of Holography Unit, discusses his working practises

The artist is a fan of Claes Oldenburg, Robert Wyatt and French sculptor ACM

What was the first exhibition you went to see? Claes Oldenburg’s An Anthology at Hayward Gallery. Now I think of it, there’s something about those early soft sculptures that is still near the heart of things for me. What kind of music do you listen…

David Michalek: Figure Studies

Slo-mo studies of every-day movement make imperfection blur into beauty

There’s something heroic about David Michalek’s three-screen sequel of sorts to his similarly-styled ‘Slow Dancing’ triptych of larger-than-life slo-mo studies of dancers in motion, first seen in 2007. Where in that piece five blink-and-you’ll-miss-em…

Alistair Frost: Image Coming Soon

Exhibition themed around leisure and laziness feels uninspiring and disaffecting

There is a leisure agenda here, activities actively postponed: ‘image coming soon’. The process of contemplation – thinking, planning, daydreaming, future presence – manifests in hammocks turned canvases. Interludes of motivational music disrupt the…

A buyer's guide to fashion photography

Inspired by the Dundee V&A’s Selling Dreams exhibition, we find out where to buy fashion photo-lit

The artful ogle is celebrated this Autumn in Dundee, in the lead up to the V&A opening there in 2015. Beautifully captured moments from the fashion world are on show from the end of September – including a grainy, black and white one of Twiggy whizzing…

What We Have Done, What We Are About to Do

A review of the CCA's Third Eye retrospective

Anyone who ever stepped into the wonderland that was the Third Eye Centre will know that, pre-Transmission/Tramway/Arches/Kinning Park/Summerhall, this holistic, slightly ramshackle Sauchiehall Street hub was pretty much the only avant-fun in town.

The Invisible College and Churches in the Modern World

Dual film & architecture exhibition focused on modern Catholicism

A dual exhibition which reflects the Catholic church’s process of aggiornamento (‘updating’) in the latter half of the 20th century, the two displays here examine the architecture of a new breed of modernist post-war places of worship in very different…

Glasgow Women's Library hosts group exhibition 21 Revolutions

The show features works from Karla Black, Jacki Parry, Helen de Main, Sharon Thomas and Corin Sworn

Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) has grown from a grassroots project launched in 1991 in a small shopfront in Garnethill into an accredited museum and a hub for women’s and equalities information in Scotland. The exhibition 21 Revolutions celebrates a…

Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape

Watercolour landscapes with photorealist sensibilities

Most remembered as the man who arranged the shipping of the Elgin Marbles in his position as artistic retainer to Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, this retrospective of Giovanni Battista Lusieri’s relatively little-remembered 18th and 19th century landscape…

A guide to the best attractions in Glasgow

The Burrell Collection, Botanic Gardens, Necropolis and School of Art among the city's top sights

Burrell Collection. In the heart of Pollok Country Park is this collection of art, including work by Degas, Rodin and Cézanne as well as ancient and medieval artefacts. It is named after shipping tycoon Sir William Burrell, who amassed much of its…

Craig Coulthard - Forest Pitch

Artist Coulthard creates a full-size football pitch in the Borders as part of the Cultural Olympiad

Craig Coulthard has certainly put the ‘beautiful’ in the beautiful game with Forest Pitch; a full-size football pitch created in the middle of a forest in the Scottish Borders. At the end of August two football matches were played on the pitch, the…

Unearth Glasgow's architectural secrets in autumn 2012 with The Glasgow School of Art

Learn more about Glasgow's Father of Style Charles Rennie Mackintosh through inspiring tours

You might think you know all there is to know about Glasgow’s Father of Style, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but the launch of The Glasgow School of Art’s intriguing new walking tour based around the architect, artist and designer as well as a festival…

A guide to the Edinburgh and Glasgow LGBT scene

Clubs, bars, films, visual art, sports events and festivals all covered

Glasgow Not short of club nights, Glasgow has a reasonable mix of the mainstream and the leftfield. Play and Polo Lounge offer reasonably priced midweek nights, while FHQ in Merchant City is a ladies-only bar with affordable, regular nights including…