Tuesday 16 July 2013

Aquatopia The Imaginary of the Ocean Deep

I want more exhibitions like this.

I have to admit that Glasgow is well served for visual art. If it isn't a new gallery opening up in an old industrial space (The Whisky Bond), there's an intriguing curator exhibition dealing with a current aesthetic issue at the CCA. But a recent visit to Nottingham got me on the mailing list to its contemporary art gallery, and they are on a touring circuit that gets this sort of thing.


Aquatopia
The Imaginary of the Ocean Deep
Opening Event

Fri 19 July 2013
6.30pm - 11pm


If you haven't already booked your place to join us for the launch of Aquatopia, please do so now as places are limited.

The exhibition launch is followed by our Summer Party until 11pm. There will be a BBQ on our sun terrace along with a limited number of complimentary drinks courtesy of ABSOLUT Vodka.

The music set times will be:
6.30pm DJ Winston, Island reggae - Cafe.Bar
8.15pm The Futureheads, acoustic set - The Space
9.00pm DJs Arne VB (Field Day and FTS Radio) and Mark Emmanuel, Mutant Disco - Cafe.Bar

Aquatopia brings together contemporary and historic artworks that explore how the ocean deep has been imagined through time and across cultures. Artists include JMW Turner, Hokusai, Lucian Freud, Barbara Hepworth, Spartacus Chetwynd, The Otolith Group, Simon Starling and Wolfgang Tillmans.




Admittedly, I am not that fussed about having a reggae disco (Mungo's Hi-Fi rocks Glasgow anyway), and The Futureheads have sadly failed to live up to their promising name. It's the names of the artists that gets me - Turner and Chetwynd in the same room? Sweet.

This kind of exhibition fits in with my current suspicion that it is the curation, not the individual art objects, that is emerging as the new art of the twenty first century. This makes sense - there's so much information knocking about these days, the trick is not in making it, but making sense of it.

Besides, anything that gets some of the old masters out of storage and veneration, and reconnects them to contemporary currents is alright by me.


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