Glasgow International 2020 has announced details of its ninth edition, the second of Director Richard Parry. Comprising 54 exhibitions and 82 events, performances and talks at over 50 spaces across the city and showcasing work by 160 artists; the theme of the 2020 festival is Attention: asking us to consider how, where and in whom our attention is placed at a time of seemingly constant distraction. Scotland’s biennial festival of contemporary art further highlights Glasgow as one of the world’s most important and exciting centres for visual art.
Highlights of the Glasgow International 2020 program include:
One of the most in-depth presentations to date of work by the late Scottish painter Carol Rhodes (b. Edinburgh, 1959; d. Glasgow, 2018), whose drawings, paintings and reference materials, many previously unseen, will be displayed at Kelvingrove.
In Kelvin Hall, the American artist Gretchen Bender’s Total Recall (1987) will be presented in Scotland for the first time. Installed in a black box space, the eleven-channel video installation, which predicted the ‘image saturation’ of the coming decades, utilises 24 monitors and three projection screens.
The first UK exhibition of the “extreme maquettes”—intricate utopian townscape models—created by self-taught Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez (b. Kimbembele-Ihunga, Belgian Congo, 1948; d. Kinshasa, DRC, 2015).
New works by Martine Syms, Duncan Campbell, Jenkin van Zyl, Yuko Mohri, Ana Mazzei, Sarah Forrest, Nep Sidhu and France-Lise McGurn.
The first UK showing of Georgina Starr’s large-scale installation Moment Memory Monument (2017) including performances at points throughout the festival; in addition to a major new film commission, Quarantaine, at Tramway.
New work by Urara Tsuchiya: an imaginary hotel room within a real Glasgow city centre hotel, fitted with bespoke ceramic and textile works and featuring a programme of performances by invited artists.
New work by photographer, media artist and researcher Ingrid Pollard at Glasgow Women’s Library, developed in response to its Lesbian Archive and Information Centre, the largest of its kind in the UK.
A new film by Alberta Whittle, co-commissioned with Glasgow Sculpture Studios and supported by EventScotland in celebration of Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters 2020.
An opening night of performances, co-commissioned with the David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF), including performances from international artists Paul Maheke, Lina Lapelytė and Nina Beier.
Public performances and film screenings by artists and collectives including Love Unlimited and Hamja Ahsan.
A public lecture by renowned art historian TJ Clark on March 5, 2020 on the theme of attention and attentiveness.
Press and professional accreditation for Glasgow International 2020 is now open via the Festival website. To request an accreditation please click HERE.
Full details of the Director’s Programme, the Across the City Programme, public events and performances and festival sponsors can be downloaded HERE.
Glasgow International 2020
April 24–May 10, 2020
Press Preview: April 23