GLASGOW International
Identity parade Legendary visual artist and Morrissey pal Linder discusses her epic new performance piece and eagerly awaited exhibition with Neil Cooper
W hat are words worth? ‘Glamour’, for instance, is a Scottish derivative that comes directly from the word ‘Grammar’, the literal meaning of which is ‘learning via a magic spell or hex’. Clearly this is a long way from the red carpet approach that passes for glamour today, and forms part of the thinking behind ‘The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated from the House of FAME’, thirteen-hour performance by artist (and close
a
friend/photographer) to Morrissey, Linder, to accompany her exhibition, King’s Ransom (Hybrid Tea) at Sorcha Dallas.
As the title suggests, the piece is a riot of criss-crossing ideas and influences. It incorporates input from dancers, The Cinematic Orchestra’s Stuart McCallum, and Richard Nicoll, designer and creative director of fashion house Cerutti. The roots of the piece, however, are much closer to home. been looking at the film of John ‘I’d
Osborne’s The Entertainer,’ says Linder during a break from preparations for the show, which included a month-long residency in Glasgow. ‘It was filmed in Morecambe, near where I live, and is very much to do with the senility of music hall and the senility of that form. That got me thinking about the senility of pop music, and about living in a world that has this ease of absorption. Music hall always had thirteen acts, and I wondered what would happen if you stretched them out to an hour.’ The resulting collage promises an epic invocation of witch trials, ragtime dances born out of slavery and
bathing beauties on parade. It’s an even bigger step up from Linder’s four-hour 2001 performance piece ‘The Working Class Goes To Paradise’. While Linder’s previous performances in Glasgow, at Sorcha Dallas and at Lucy McKenzie’s Sunday night Flourish event, have been on a small scale, ‘The Working Class...’, performed in Manchester and London, combined similarly disparate elements, as three bands played simultaneously while women re- enacted Shaker rituals and a bearded-up Linder stalked the room à la Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western anti-hero.
Linder’s work has long subverted notions of sexual identity, and is most recognisable from early collages for Manchester-based punk-era contemporaries Buzzcocks and Magazine and a collaboration on The Secret Public with writer Jon Savage. As vocalist with the band Ludus, Linder applied sexual politics and primal screaming to a nouveau cocktail jazz guitar backing, once appearing at The Haçienda dripping in bloody meat and sporting a giant dildo. ‘The Darktown Cakewalk’, though, is something else again.
‘It’s ‘It’s not rehearsed,’ Linder stresses. continuous improvisation. The whole piece is in flux, and could change any second. Time is the star of the show, and you need thirteen hours for that star to shine.’
Linder, King’s Ransom (Hybrid Tea), Sorcha Dallas, Fri 16 Apr–Mon 3 May; The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated from the House of FAME, The Arches, Fri 23 Apr.
A sense of place Sculptor Jimmie Durham’s work is informed by politics and an immersion in his surroundings. Liz Shannon talks to him about his practice
The renowned American sculptor Jimmie Durham has not shied away from using local materials in the creation of his installation at Glasgow Sculpture Studios. ‘The first thing I made was out of a piece of PVC drainpipe and an old tank that used to contain helium for little balloons. I just found them out in the back, in the garbage.’ The fruit of a three-month residency, the piece also hints at his work as a writer and poet. ‘It’s not exactly sculpture – it’s sculpture with things that hang on the wall. There’s a lot of texts and strange little images and such.’
Political activism is intertwined with Durham’s
art. He was a high-profile activist for the American Indian Movement, while his partner, the artist Maria Thereza Alves, co-founded Brazil’s Green Party. ‘It’s a matter of intellectual activity – for me that means political activity. We are political people whether we want to be or not.’ While Durham downplays his personal identity
(‘I never worry much about my own identity: I think I’ve been miswritten about regarding that’),
24 THE LIST 15–29 Apr 2010
he’s found some common ground with Scottish culture during his residency at GSS, which may be reflected in the work. ‘It will look a bit like I’m thinking about my identity because Cherokees, Choctaws and Creek Indians were kind of internally colonised by Scots immigrants – that became part of us. Many Cherokees have Scottish names, Scottish looks – that’s been going on for more than 200 years.’ Currently based in Berlin and Rome, Durham
soaks up influences from his surroundings, and this participation is a significant part of his creative process. ‘I don’t like to be in one place, but when I’m in a place I like to participate. It’s the way I like to work. If you’re walking around, as I like to do, you find things that are specifically of the place. You don’t always find them in the garbage. I bought five golf clubs – I couldn’t resist them.’ Three of these clubs have found their way into the work. ‘I can let you have two second hand ones pretty cheap,’ he laughs. ■ Jimmie Durham, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Fri 16 Apr–Sat 31 Jul.