The Origins and Motives of Transmission Gallery (1983 – 1991) and the Importance of Audience to an Artist-Run Initiative

The Origins and Motives of Transmission Gallery (1983 – 1991) and the Importance of Audience to an Artist-Run Initiative This paper was originally submitted in August 2012 for the partial fulfilment of the requirements for a degree of MSc in Museum Theory and Practice at Glasgow University. The thesis was a study of the importance of audience to the artist-run initiative Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, and sought to find out who Transmission’s audience was, how valued they were to the gallery, and how the gallery engaged with them. It focussed on the influence on the gallery by particular individuals, the groups of artists who were involved, the significance of Variant Magazine on Scottish culture, and certain exhibitions. The dissertation shows the levels of political engagement that those who were involved with Transmission held and that there was a shared belief that art should be accessible to everybody and strive to be beneficial to society. Transmission originated in the early 1980s against the background of social problems and a grim economic situation in Glasgow. There were two main motives behind Transmission’s creation. The first was to assist struggling artists and be part of a support network for them, and the second was to engage with the local community and improve the accessibility of art for the working-class population. The dissertation focused on the influence on Transmission by particular individuals, the students from the Environmental Art Department at Glasgow School of Art, the significance of Variant Magazine on Scottish culture, certain exhibitions, particularly Windfall ’91 which firmly established Transmission as an international arts institution. All of these components were politically motivated and shared the belief that art should be a part of society, and that artists need to make art that a local community can have access to and engage with. Transmission’s principal audience that it had a relationship with was people working in the arts and culture scene, both locally and internationally. Although its membership was predominantly made up of artists, part of its founding constitution was to improve the accessibility to art for its local working- class community. 2 CONTENTS List of Figures 4 Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 6 Literature Review 8 Methodology 19 Transmission: An Artist-Run Initiative 20 Establishment of Transmission 20 Public Opening 22 Poverty 23 The Third Eye Centre 25 Variant Magazine 26 Conclusion 28 The Environmental Art Department and Transmission 30 Environmental Art 30 Context is Half the Work 31 Public Art Project 33 Environmental Art Students and Transmission 34 Cultural-Workers in Transmission 37 Socialising and the Free University 38 Conclusion 40 New Venue for Transmission 41 King Street 41 The Festival of Plagiarism 42 Lawrence Weiner 45 European Capital of Culture 1990 46 Conclusion 48 Windfall ’91 49 Windfall 49 The Seaman’s Mission 50 Artistic Process 52 Context 54 Catalogue 55 Reception 58 Conclusion 59 The Glasgow Miracle 61 Conclusion 63 Bibliography 65 3 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Transmission advert, Variant Magazine back page 18 (Referenced in page 12) Figure 2: Urban Life poster 22 (Referenced in page 23 Figure 3: Iconoclasm advert 29 (Referenced in page 27) Figure 4: Fifth Festival of Plagiarism, detail 44 (Referenced in page 43) Figure 5: Lawrence Weiner exhibition sticker 46 (Referenced in page 45) Figure 6: Seaman’s Mission building 51 (Referenced in page 50) Figure 7: Elsie Mitchell installation detail, Windfall ’91 53 (Referenced in page 52) Figure 8: Windfall ’91 exhibition catalogue front cover 56 (Referenced in page 55) 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr Ian Anderson for his guidance and help in bringing my research topic into focus. His enthusiasm for this topic was encouraging. My conversations with Professor Gill Scott about art are always enjoyable and enlightening so I thank her for being such a knowledgeable friend. Thank you to my parents and brother for their editing skills. I am so grateful to Ken Stott for the use of his computer and to my sister, Maribel Verdesoto and Katie Field for looking after me. And lastly I want to say thank you and well done to Maria Simou. 5 INTRODUCTION While many London-based artists in the late 1980s set up warehouse exhibitions with the hope of attracting private buyers and dealers, Glasgow based artists had less interest in the private art world and were far more politically motivated. During a period of financial entrepreneurialship and booming art markets in London post-industrial Glasgow flourished as a major centre of not-for-profit art centres. This dissertation has investigated the importance of audience to an artist-run initiative. It has concentrated on Glasgow during the 1980s because it was a period in which internationally famous artists emerged from the city while it was suffering from economic deprivation. Transmission Gallery played a major role in giving these artists a platform to begin their careers whilst a strong support network for artists grew in the city. From humble beginnings, Transmission was to become one of the most significant arts venues in Scotland and many of the artists that Transmission has supported have become internationally successful. Transmission’s constitution had two central objectives. The first was to support unestablished artists and give them the freedom to experiment and exhibit their own work and be involved with the gallery’s programme of events. The other central objective was to advance public education. The artists who were involved with Transmission were all socially conscious and believed that their art should serve the public. 6 Previous research into this topic has been concerned with either telling the history of Transmission, discussing particular artists or the social history of Glasgow during the period. A lot of previous research into this recent history of Glasgow has concentrated on different artists and different venues. Other commentators on Glasgow’s culture during the period are fascinated by the popular impact of Glasgow hosting the European Capital of Culture in 1990. A lot of discussion has already taken place into artist-led initiatives and today there is recognition of their historical significance and the legacy that they have played in Glasgow’s modern culture. However, there has been no prior research to solely investigate the importance of audience to Transmission during its early history. This dissertation argues that the artists involved in Transmission believed in the relevance of audience and were politically motivated to create art for the good of society. This dissertation will present a chronological account of Transmission’s history from its establishment in 1983 to the exhibition Windfall ’91, hosted in 1991. In that year Transmission became firmly established as an internationally recognised arts centre and the neo-conceptual art that it was exhibiting earned critical acclaim. Many of the artists who worked at Transmission during this period believed in the context of their art, particularly in relation to society, politics, and location. In addition, neo- conceptual art demands audience to give it meaning and intrinsic value. 7 LITERATURE REVIEW This dissertation has avoided being overly descriptive of particular artworks and the oeuvre of particular artists at the expense of the socio-political context. Therefore the literature which has been read tends to concentrate on the historical background and the art theory and political philosophy discussed by the relevant artists. The main texts that informed this research were Variant Magazine, particularly Malcolm Dickson’s editorials and Euan McArthur’s review of Windfall ‘91; essays by former head of Glasgow School of Art’s Environmental Art Department David Harding; Sarah Lowndes’ in-depth survey of Glasgow’s modern cultural scene, Social Sculpture: Art Performance and Music in Glasgow: A Social History of Independent Practice; Craig Richardson’s book, Scottish Art Since 1960: Historical Reflections and Contemporary Overviews; and a series of essays and exhibition reviews by Ross Sinclair. Much of the literature discusses the social impact of Thatcherite Britain on Glasgow during the 1980s and the harsh realities of poverty on society and the arts. Although there has been a much larger bibliography involved, these were the texts that were most enlightening and from these texts other areas of enquiry could be sought. That these writers all know each other and have been involved in the work going into or coming out of Transmission is symptomatic of the literature that exists concerning Scottish neo-conceptual art. Although many of the artists involved with Transmission gallery at the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s have become internationally successful, most recent literature reporting on contemporary Scottish art does not advance beyond the New Image 8 neo-expressive figurative painters of Stephen Campbell, Adrian Wiszniewski, Peter Howson and Ken Currie. Therefore, most of the literature that has been read for the research of this dissertation has been written by people who were there. Additionally many of the writers covering the history of Transmission have interviewed relevant artists as part of their own research into the subject. In Social Sculpture, which surveys Glasgow’s art scene against the backdrop of its social history, Sarah Lowndes highlights that there is an insubstantial amount of published literature that

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