The Glasgow School of Art

Caesura
Heaven Baek, Briggs & Cole, Raydale Dower
22 March – 4 May 2014

Reid Gallery, Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art, 164 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G3 6RF

Opening Times: Mon-Sat: 11am - 5pm, Sun: 11am - 4pm Open to 8pm Thursdays during Glasgow International (3,10,17 April)

First public exhibition, Reid Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art

Preview 21 March 2014, 6-8pm

For the opening public exhibition in The Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Gallery, a purpose built exhibition space on the ground floor of the new Reid Building, GSA Exhibitions has invited four of the GSA’s alumni - Briggs & Cole, Raydale Dower and Heaven Baek - to respond to the architecture of the space and this point in the GSA’s 170 year history. Incorporating both physical and digital works, the exhibition exploits the full potential of the new gallery space. The exhibition runs from 22 March – 4 May 2014 and is part of the included programme for the 2014 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.

Steven Holl Architects’ buildings have often been inspired by the connection between architecture, music and poetry. A ‘caesura’ (pronounced say-sura) denotes a brief, silent pause in poetry or music, during which metrical time is not counted. As the new Reid Building welcomes people and springs into life, occupied by its community, visited by the public, this inaugural exhibition is intended to act as a ‘caesura’. It is a pause in time, the beginning of a new chapter for the art school.

GSA Product Design graduate, Jane Briggs and partner Christy Cole, a GSA Fine Art graduate, established their eponymous Design Studio in 2012. They create limited edition and specially commissioned interior items including furniture, lighting, objets d'art, large-scale artworks, fabric and wallpaper prints. For Caesura, Briggs & Cole have responded to the relationship between the Mackintosh Building and Reid Building with a number of pieces including an oak and steel Board Room table that brings together imagery from the architecture of both buildings and looks at the power dynamic between the two. The details within the table combine the past and the present with the tabletop created using a unique handmade process developed by Briggs & Cole, especially for this commission.

In response to the new Reid Building, GSA Sound for the Moving Image graduate, Raydale Dower has brought together artworks and archive material from collections as reference points for new work including a sound installation that will respond to movement within the gallery. Collectively these works explore associations between sculptural and sonic form, with Dower's research drawing on three examples:  the work of the Russian sculptor, Naum Gabo (1890-1977); the oscilloscope patterns of Ben Laposky (1914-2000, USA mathematician and artist) and Le Corbusier’s collaboration with composers Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varèse, Poème électronique for the Philips Pavillion (designed for the 1958 World’s Fair). Gabo’s Linear Construction No. 1 (1942-43) will be on loan for Caesura from The Pier Arts Centre Collection, Orkney.

The architects of the Reid Building describe its two unique design features in musical terms: the “driven voids of light” creating the regular rhythm and the “circuit of connection” being the freer melody. Another of their designs, the Daeyang Gallery and House in the Sungbuk area of Seoul was inspired by a 1967 sketch for a music score by the composer Istvan Anhalt, "Symphony of Modules," which they discovered in John Cage’s book "Notations”. With the support of Steven Holl Architects, Korean GSA MFA graduate, Heaven Baek, has been commissioned to make a new video work using the Daeyang Gallery and House as the location. Baek’s film at once offers an expanded reading of the Reid Building in Glasgow, by referencing another Steven Holl Architects’ design, and signifies the reach of the GSA whose graduates live and work all over the world.  Baek’s new piece continues her fascination with Korean soap opera. A filmic, atmospheric treatment of the interplay of fiction and reality, the work features reflections of each of the Daeyang pavillions in their surrounding water, alongside actors from a well-known Korean soap opera who have previously been cast as Sungbuk residents in the series.

About The Reid Gallery
The Reid Gallery in the Reid Building will predominantly show Department-led exhibitions of students’ work, such as work in progress and year end shows. It will also be utilised during key times in GSA’s calendar such as the annual Degree Show and Graduate Degree Show. There will also be shows involving staff. Each summer there will be a curated show linking to the Mackintosh Museum. The Mackintosh Museum will continue to have a curated programme of contemporary art, design and architecture, as well as shows which link to our unique heritage.

Caesura is part of GI 2014 included programme