Gi Festival

The Gi Festival was established in 2005 and is the Glasgow’s curated and commissioning Festival, providing a platform for the best of contemporary visual arts ranging from established Scottish and international artists to emerging talent. The 2008 programme is the third time the Festival has been staged, and is also the first edition in its new biennial format.
Despite its size, Glasgow remains surprising well represented in the fields of art, music, literature and the other artistic mediums on an international level of quality and consistency. In the past ten years Glasgow artists have found themselves rubbing shoulders with the very best new talent from far larger and more prestigious centres of cultural production such as London New York, Paris and Berlin.
In the prizes and lists where success is recognised in the media , Glasgow’s art acheivements speak for themselves, with the city having produced a number of prestigious award winners in the last 15 years;- The Turner prize going to Simon Starling (2005, nominated alongside Jim Lambie) and Douglas Gordon (1996) - who also received the Hugo Boss prize (1998) - and Beck’s Future winner Toby Paterson (2002).
Just as importantly for the Glasgow, and for the Gi Festival, is the cross-cultural mesh that joins and pervades the artistic community. Musicians, artists, performers, djs and writers (both the established and nascent) socialise, create, collaborate and are intimately connected in a way that is not replicated in larger cities, and much work is infused with a rock’n’roll spirit inspired by these shared social hubs of clubs and live gigs.
Within this tightly connected scene the possibilities for inspiration and invention are many, and the emerging generation of new artists are proving to be as challenging, innovative and reactive to the city’s evolving community as the established and successful names. The Gi festival is exhibiting a exciting spectrum of new and emerging talent from both the city’s own art scene, and the wider community of international talent that is both inspired by and drawn to the city.
To stay connected to programme updates for the 2010 programme, and news of Gi related events, please register on our main website -
www.glasgowinternational.org
Exhibitions and openings at this years Gi Festival
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)