Day 2 in Glasgow

On Saturday after a McDonald's breakfast (well it sounds Scottish doesn't it?)  breakfast we took a walk towards the  River Clyde, the Clyde had been the heart of Glasgow in years gone by but the de-industrialisation  of the river has changed this.

Sculpture and the inscription.

By the river is a commemoration to the International Brigade who fought the fascists in the Spanish Civil war.

The walk back to the City centre took us by the Enoch shopping plaza (nothing special) and the  Gallery of Modern Art  (GoMA).


In the Gallery the stand out work for me was one about Edinburgh places of worship which is made of cardboard it's called The Lamp of Sacrifice and is by the Scottish artist Nathan Coley.

The work was inspired by the 286 Churches, Temples and other places that people use for their religions, made in 2005 it also has a strong connection with Coley's father.

Bollard head

The GoMA is located in the heart of the city and outside there's a statue which regularly has a traffic cone added to it, subsequently it'll be removed but revellers will invariably replace.

There was a nice neon in the gallery too- Gentleman’s Club (2005) by Colin McCluskie.

Big Cinema

In the afternoon we went to the impressive multi screen cinema  near our hotel and saw the latest Tom Cruise (*and Emily Blunt) film it's called The Edge of Tomorrow and for me Cruise generally is a bit of a guarantee of entertainment in films, this is no exception, full of action but more than this a great message.
There's a bit of Sisyphus in this odd story taken from the Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka's book All You Need Is Kill.

Food was at a Chinese restaurant (Loon Fung)  and very good too, quite old school with big helpings and plenty of tea.

Old School Chinese eatery

Glasgow trip outgoing and day 1

Outgoing

Last Thursday evening we took a flight to Glasgow airport for a 4 night city break in the city that'll host the

Heathrow airport as we left

Commonwealth games next month. Although the  weekend was to be a bargain one we had used British Airways for hotel and flight which meant that we'd have our local airport, Heathrow as the outgoing leg of the journey.

Pleasantly surprised by the flight BA are I would say better than the low cost airlines and even provided a drink.On the onward trip from the airport to the well appointed Thistle Hotel in the centre of Glasgow - our taxi driver was a really nice friendly person who provided a great introduction pointing out touristic information as we moved through a late evening city.

Day 1

The simple entrance gives nothing away

After a good sleep  the next day kicked off with a pre-breakfast stroll and a Bagel*mania (very good value at less than £10 for the two of us)  breakfast.  We decided to try and locate The Burrell Collection
and  used the combination of the Glasgow underground and quite a long

A Rodin in the Burrell

walk to find the Collection.

Oddly it's just over a year since I commented on rather an excellent TV programme about Burrell and his hoarding habit who was a bit like The US press Baron Randolph Hearst in his collecting .

The Galsgow underground consists of one circle line and looks a bit like a child's version of a metro system.  the journey was worth it and saw the Courbet painting, The Charity of a Beggar at Ornans as well as some very varied artefacts, and plenty of Rodins.

A modern home for a varied collection
that Burrell left to Glasgow

A very old station

The Burrell  Collection was housed in a modern (though leaky) building in the delightful Pollok Park- we used overground to get back to the city via Pollokshaws West.



The trip to the Burrell was fun, the weather good  and after a cup of tea and a rest in our hotel  room we went off and ate that evening at the rather excellent Tapas restaurant Torres in nearby Sauceihall Street.

Great Spanish Food Here

Artichoke

Art visit - The Fine Art Society Contemporary- Annie Kevans, Women and the History of Art

I suppose for many men there's almost a knee jerk anti- reaction to a show entitled  Women and the History of Art, well I metaphorically  took the bull by the horns and without fear or favour entered the lions den yesterday to see what it was about.

 The Fine Art Society Contemporary gallery in New Bond Street is a sombre looking place and in this respect the Annie Kevans show fitted well - the pictures were heavily retro and showed very much  a production line ethos - all the same size and price, looking simple and 'tasteful' nothing jarring or shocking to see.

not far from the gallery 

What was more intriguing perhaps than the portraits of the Women who had an impact at one time in the  art  world was the brief biographical details that accompanied the pictures.

There was some puzzlement as to why Annie had chosen the approach she had when more dramatic methods of decrying the fact that so much of the art world has denied women their place in the history - was she being ironic or reflecting a perceived vacuousness?

Urbanely outfitted?

In fact this method of recreating history has used by Annie before in here works, I saw the  series of pictures of Boys at the Saatchi recently (last year as part of Paper) and was puzzled but that series was not about feminism (as perhaps Women and the History of Art is )   - have a look here at a review that gives some insight into the motivation behind the project (which we mostly thought would make a good book, or the theme of a curated exhibition).