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Direct serious action is therefore necessary

This solo exhibition was commissioned by CCA with additional funding from Henry Moore Foundation. CCA presents an international programme of contemporary art, focusing on discursive and /or dialectical practices (Frances Stark; Kate Davies/ Faith Wilding). CCA has engaged in a process of self-reflexive enquiry into its future role. This was an invitation to contribute to this process and impact upon CCA’s development.

The exhibition was developed over an eighteen-month period in response to CCA’s function, history and architecture - with a focus on CCA’s Lottery redevelopment 10 years earlier and the consequences of its aspirations and values. The project used strategies of curation and intervention to create an “artwork as exhibition” that worked with, and against, the conventions of an Arts Centre; to reconsider the experiences of CCA for its users and audiences.

The central components were two large worm-like sculptural interventions intersecting the main galleries, café and foyer. These used spectacle and absurdity as strategies to highlight and disrupt the unresolved architectural development of CCA. The project utilised the contexts of circulation around the exhibition, using designed motifs to infiltrate the venue’s marketing and interpretation material. Into this, sixteen photographs of Glasgow articulated a notable paradox of contemporary art, that it must function and circulate effectively both internationally and locally.

A programme of events accompanied the exhibition. Gavin Wade, Eastside Projects, Birmingham focused on the role of the public gallery; Collective architects (Glasgow) discussed potential architectural changes. A publication, co-funded with Eastside Projects, positioned the CCA project alongside other recent Tatham & O’Sullivan works to further consider the role(s) of contemporary art in the public sphere.