Glasgow International
Glasgow, until 25 April 2016
Kelvin Hall is a semi-derelict monument to the fag-end of Glasgow’s great art deco adventure. Built during the city’s industrial prime as an exhibition hall, it is now a building site, undergoing refurbishment. This has not stopped the Glasgow International art festival, the loose theme of which is the legacy of industry, from using it as a venue for two of the 78 exhibitions currently running across the city. Visitors must therefore navigate dilapidated stairwells and boarded up doorways to find the two rooms of art huddled in the front of the building.
In the foyer is a show by Australian painter Helen Johnson. Her large-scale canvases are suspended, unstretched, from ropes in the middle of the room, allowing the viewer to examine front and back. The backs contain notes and sketches; the fronts show Johnson’s complex, inventive and obscure painting.
Helen Johnson’s ‘Barren Field’
The benefit of this Janus display is unclear; the painted side is very obviously the one to look at and the reverse notes add little.
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