From Gordon Boag, Media Officer, Glasgow Life

30 April 2015
GALLERY OF MODERN ART EXHIBITION TO CELEBRATE THE ACQUISITION OF WORKS INSPIRED BY THE GLASGOW WOMENS LIBRARY

A new exhibition featuring works, which celebrate the 21st anniversary of Glasgow Women’s Library and Scotland’s only women’s library, is opening at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. 12 of the works which featured in 21 Revolutions series which celebrated the anniversary have been acquired for Glasgow’s Collection and are the starting point for Ripples on the Pond which will open on May 1 and will run until early next year in Gallery 4.
Ripples on the Pond relates the newly acquired works to others which are already in Glasgow’s collection and are presented as a conversation between the works and the Modern Edinburgh Film School and LUX Scotland artists screenings which are being held in the gallery and beyond. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to be part of the conversation which is expected to grow and change like ripples.

The exhibition will also explore how women use paper as part of their significant practice and for Ripples on the Pond paper can also mean photography. Bringing the exhibition together has also enabled our staff to learn more about the breadth and depth Glasgow’s collection and how works relate to each other.

Councillor Archie Graham, Chair of Glasgow Life said: “Glasgow Women’s Library is unique in Scotland and it is entirely appropriate that these works which were created to mark its 21st anniversary have been acquired for Glasgow’s unique and globally recognised collection. Ripples on the Pond will serve as a starting point to understand how these acquisitions relate to works which have previously been in the collection and we will welcome as many contributions as possible to what will surely be a fascinating conversation”.

Themes of play, landscape, feminism, place and visibility emerge in the exhibition is coming into being we are learning more about the works in the collection and understanding the genealogy of practice, both locally and internationally, of women artists living and working in Glasgow.

Helen de Main, whose work January 1987, from 21 Spare Ribs (2012) with the text Ripples on the Pond, features in the exhibition and gave it its name said: This work was commissioned by Glasgow Women’s Library for 21 Revolutions and is inspired by the Library’s collection of Spare Rib magazines. Spare Rib was an iconic feminist magazine that was published between 1972 and 1993 covering a wide range of feminist and political topics, as well as more personal and poetic stories. The text in this work is taken from the title of a piece of new fiction in the January 1987 edition of the magazine. The story reflects on how the consequences of personal actions can radiate out, like ripples on a pond, affecting others beyond our reach.

Alex Hetherington from Modern Edinburgh Film School said: Modern Edinburgh Film School is delighted to have participated in the development and making of Ripples on the Pond, and to have worked so closely with Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Museums, Affiliate: Thinking Collections and with LUX Scotland. Within this process the School has encountered questions that bring drawing and works on paper in close proximity to film and moving image and in turn to time-based media with the sculptural and the live, and to notions of sculpture on film, film and space and expanded cinema. Its ‘poetic measurement’ of the collection, the narratives it contains and intellect of the practices of the women artists on display brings to the foreground a sense of the collection of works on paper and the sister-essay of film in response as a consciousness and a voice. One that resonates with what artist Rose English has observed on the “longevity and strength of the ephemeral.” The project has captured live conversations with selected artists at interesting points in their development, careers and appraisal, and has had the privilege to discuss works in progress, new films and future experiments. And as the film programme and exhibition unfold over its lifetime I hope the project generates vital and lively questions and conversations on the subject of collecting, visibility, media choice and women artists and moving image emerging from Scotland.

Notes to Editors

Artists whose work features in Ripples on the Pond include Sam Ainsley, Claire Barclay, Georgina Beier, Vanessa Bell, Kate Davis, Helen de Main, Jacqueline Donachie, Joan Eardley, Karen Guthrie, Ilana Halperin, Barbara Hepworth, Louise Hopkins, Roni Horn, Bet Low, Patricia MacDonald, Mari Mahr, Shauna McMullan, Jacki Parry, Ciara Phillips, Nina Pope, Carol Rhodes, Zineb Sedira, Lucy Skaer, Jo Spence, Corin Sworn, Amanda Thomson, Jane Topping and Alison Watt.

Moving Image programme in the projection space (confirmed to date):
Corin Sworn, Anne Colvin, Sarah Forrest, Anne-Marie Copestake
Modern Edinburgh Film School: Artists in the programme and essay for Affiliate: Thinking Collections (a University of Glasgow programme funded by Creative Scotland) – Anne Colvin, Sarah Forrest, Anne-Marie Copestake, Rosalind Nashashibi, Allison Gibbs, Karen Cunningham, Mairi Lafferty, Annabel Nicolson, Lauren Gault, and Catherine Street
Ripples on the Pond has been developed with Affiliate: Thinking Collections (a University of Glasgow programme funded by Creative Scotland) and Modern Edinburgh Film School, along with LUX Scotland and Glasgow Women’s Library