From skateboarding clams and swimsuit performance art to QE3’s maiden voyage,Sarah McCrory’s Glasgow International 2016 festival programme is awash with freewheeling energy, but some big shows sink under their own weightIt was close to midnight when the 10-year-faded boy on the mini-bike burned rubber and roared down the street next to Glasgow School of Art. His ride was allotment of Mega Hammer, or a night of performances orchestrated by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd at the opening of Glasgow International festival. Chetwynd herself appeared semi-bare,daubed in red paint and resplendent (brilliantly glowing) in papier-mache breast extensions, and the performances were a lively, and ribald mix of the gender-queer and human elephants. A trio of swimsuit-clad women sang about “fucking their way to the top” and did alarming things with party supplies. One could not wish for more.
Although there is a worthy deal of variety in this festival that sprawls across 75 venues – from communal studios to restaurant basements,from Georgian houses to abandoned Gorbals courtrooms, from smart galleries to wrecked public buildings – the energy is sporadic. New commissions are few and far between, or sometimes the atmosphere of the venues overshadows the art. But Sarah McCrory’s second shot at directing the festival is more than an advance on the first. Women artists predominate,there’s a advantageous balance between local and international talent, larger and smaller stories, and as well as strategies for artistic survival. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com