Like Barcelona, Paris and Vienna Glasgow is celebrated as one of Europe’s great cultural centres, and among the highlights of the 2008 calendar is the third Gi Festival. Celebrating Glasgow’s acclaimed visual arts, The Gi Festival is a showcase of work from a city that has nurtured Turner Prize, Hugo Boss and Becks Futures winners. It includes new commissions and rare chances to see work by world-renowned artists such as Jim Lambie, Simon Starling and Jonathan Monk as well as new, emerging talent. Complementing pieces by Glasgow’s own artists are exhibitions and installations by artists from across the globe.

The work on show in the 2008 Gi Festival not only provides an unrivalled opportunity to see exhilarating exhibitions, but also to experience the city in a new and exciting way. From shows in established spaces such as The Gallery of Modern Art, CCA, Tramway and The Modern Institute to installations in found spaces, public sites and even an artist’s living room The 2008 Gi Festival is a veritable cultural safari for visitors.

Gi 2008’s attractions are separated roughly into three distinct strands, the major artists presenting gallery based exhibitions, the off-site works presented in temporary and found spaces, and the “new generation” of emerging artists.

GALLERY-BASED EXHIBITIONS

• The largest exhibition in Scotland to date by Turner Prize nominated artist Jim Lambie. Forever Changes (a reference to one of Lambie’s enduring preoccupations with the 1960’s Californian psychedelic rock group LOVE) will dominate the ground floor gallery in GoMA and includes a new version of Lambie's celebrated black and white floor installations (commissioned by the 2008 Gi Festival).
• A major new commission from Jonathan Monk - opening the Tramway Gallery’s 20th anniversary programme - will highlight one of the architectural features of the space.
• Catherine Yass’s HIGH WIRE at CCA is a multi-screen installation focusing on Didier Pasquette (one of the few great hire-wire artists in the world today) and a walk he performed between the Red Road Flats in Glasgow in 2007 (co-commissioned by the Festival and ArtAngel).
• Calum Stirling will create a new piece in The Mitchell Library.
• Sorcha Dallas Gallery will show for the first time a series of works by Alasdair Gray created for an uncompleted 1970s BBC TV film.
• The Glasgow School of Art three young Chinese artists will show work in an exhibition co-produced by Pi Li of the CAFA, Beijing and Colin Chinnery.

OFF-SITE

• EXCLUSIVE! The 2008 Gi Festival will include one of a series of exhibitions being staged by the Common Guild in a private house turned “not for profit” gallery. This recently created organisation - dedicated to producing a dynamic international programme of contemporary visual art projects, exhibitions, and events - will show work in the Glasgow home of Turner Prize winning artist, Douglas Gordon. The commission for the Gi Festival will see the first UK solo exhibition by Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed.
• Simon Starling, 2006 Turner Prize winner, will show a new work inspired by the Glasgow’s cityscape placed in an off-site space in the city centre.
• Wilhelm Sasnal – a new video and sound based piece commissioned by the Gi Festival continues Sasnal’s interest in soci-political concerns with a specific exploration of the Polish community in Glasgow.
• Simon Yuill – a film piece exploring the political history and legacy of the Pollock Free State with live music by Glasgow three-piece Foxface - known for their colourfully shows embellished by elements of performance and theatricality - at the Gal Gael Boat Yard.
• Kalup Linzy – the first UK show by the New York-based artist, whose video vignettes offer satirical and subversive takes on pop culture.

“NEW GENERATION” IN PROFILE

• A.Vermin, the artist-run curatorial project that invites artists to both inhabit and engage with public and private spaces, is to be been given free range in the city centre State bar, using the premises as both gallery and event space. Amongst the highlights of the events will be the launch of latest edition of Uncle Chop Chop.
• Lowsalt, an artist-led, not-for-profit organisation founded in 2006, will show work not only in the gallery - a new exhibition by Andrew Reid – but also in a series of unexpected and disparate sites (in alleyways, under bridges, parks, auditoria, or derelict warehouses). Regular bus tours will take visitors to see work, which will include a collaborative project by Raydale Dower and Judd Brucke and a series of inflatable sculptures by Iain Kettles.
• Market Gallery presents Hideko Inoue, a recent GSA MFA graduate and New Contemporaries artist, her work is presented alongside two fellow Japanese artists Anti-Cool & Kathy Aoki, and in The Project Room Karen Cunningham, Babe Ghazi and Luca Frey will present a group show.

EVENTS, GIGS AND ARTIST TALKS

Amongst the events and gigs highlights include an exclusive appearance (and the ONLY UK performance) by Rodney Graham the seminal Vancouver-based conceptual artist, (Commissioned by The Common Guild in collaboration with the Public Art Fund, New York and in association with the Gig Festival 2008); a series of gigs at micro-gallery and boutique space Hitherto (curated and run by Krista Blake, partner of Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake) and a full programme at SWG3, a former Come des Garcons Guerrilla Store the ground floor of which is being transformed into a fully functioning bar and nightclub open to the public for the duration of the festival. The former wedding car garage will be transformed by artworks to form the interior with a ceiling by Toby Paterson and tables by Jim Lambie.

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Gi DIRECTOR 2010 2012 job description.pdf