WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT

16 FEBRUARY - 13 MARCH 2004

Celine McIlmunn/Gerry Clark, Mari Lagerquist, Misty Cervantes, Corinne Carlson, Juliana Capes, General Idea, Carolee Schneemann

PREVIEW: Saturday 14 February 6-9pm
ARTIST TALK: Friday 12 March 6pm

DOWNLOAD CATALOGUE: WhatLoveCat.pdf (360kb)

The shops are bursting full of red and pink, and George Square is dominated by a large ferris-wheel with its electronic heart pulsing to the rhythm of love.   We are all supposed to get romantic - en masse.

To coincide with Glasgow's City of Love Festival, market is hosting an exhibition entitled What's Love Got To Do With It. The exhibition integrates the work of eight artists operating at very different stages in their profession, all of whom address the complex and overpowering theme of love. Embracing a diverse range of media, the exhibition offers a challenging response and consideration of the culture of love.

Celine McIlmunn / Gerry Clark
Celine is a Glasgow based artist working in collaboration with Gerry Clark, a composer/musician. Initially the duo set out by extracting the word 'Love' from a shared record collection. Taking their recordings and re-composing them on an evolving loop, the contexts of the recordings are changed and form new relationships continually through out the show. The new composition will then be played through multidirectional speakers installed in the gallery space.

"Love is All Around" explores the use of the word love in music, emphasising the words abstract quality. In isolation questions are raised as to the real content of the word, what it is referencing and how it makes us feel. What is revealed is an understanding of the power the word asserts over us in generating emotions, a tactic the music industry has long exploited.

Mari Lagerquist is a Glasgow based artist who graduated from The Glasgow School of Art's photography department in 2002. "While they are waiting/or...a short film about love" (DVD projection) is a film that explores the interpretation of body language and non-verbal communication. The viewer alludes to possible relations between couples as they wait together for short spells of time. A moment of affection either confirms or disproves initial readings of their relationship. The image is cropped to remove the heads of the subjects, while the angle and height of the camera refers to CCTV footage. Shot in soft focus, the romanticised image contrasts with the real reason the subjects are there. "The work centres on the pleasure of voyeurism".

Misty Cervantes is showing digital photographs from her "Family Connections" series whose subjects, including her husband, are members of local L.A gangs. Taken in L.A. the photographs explore the nature of "love within gang structures". Cervantes' work explores the gang's lineage, allowing the viewer to re-evaluate family structure and challenges them to relate personally. Misty is currently on exchange at GSA from Cal Arts L.A.

"The combination of non-biological people in these dependent group arrangements forms a newly extended family. My series has developed from my personal participation and observation along with the reinvented social traditions of the extended family network."

Corinne Carlson is a Canadian artist. "The Look of Love", a 4.5m long by 1m high banner of King Kong's eyes will be installed on the exterior of a building near market. The banner is stereo-scoped and can be viewed with 3-D glasses provided by market. The image of King Kong's eyes captures the moment he first catches sight of the human woman he falls in love with. Lust, confusion, obsession characterises King Kong's experience of love. For us he represents the darker side of love, a sinister and very human kind of love.

Juliana Capes is an Edinburgh based artist. Juliana Capes work "Lovelines" involves using blackboards as places of authority and truth, where she repetitively writes out pink chalk lines, using the lyrics of love-related pop songs until these develop into idealistic statements about love.
Drawing on the affirmations and mantras of a self help pop culture of love, is this an exercise to remind what is right, what love should be and what we should learn? The mundane nature of the task alludes to a form of punishment associated with learning, whilst the song lyrics’ seemingly throwaway profundity and the hopeless idealism of the resulting statements refers to a kind of naivety and an age of sensitivity to emotions not yet experienced. www.julianacapes.co.uk

"My practice involves working in a hybridized manner across all media, with the alchemy of stuff and peculiarity of place. I enjoy the friction of using ordinary materials to make beautiful objects. I find this richness in approach conveys very directly my enjoyment in making."

General Idea "AIDS" (1987) Poster
The Collective General Idea (Jorge Zontal, AA Bronson, Felix Partz) was established in the late 1960's in Canada, but lasted only 25 years, ending after the death of two of its members due to AIDS in 1994. The poster "AIDS" is based upon the famous "LOVE" logo by Robert Indiana. Their aim was to normalise Aids through the repetitive distribution across many media of their logo and thus change the way people think about the disease. Their editions include painting, sculpture, postal stamps and a monumental metal door version.

"By keeping the word visible, it has a normalzing effect that will hopefully play a part in normalizing people's relationship to the disease-to make it something that can be dealt with as a disease rather than a set of morals or ethical issues."

Carolee Schneemann is a New York based artist who was among the founding figures of the American performance art scene of the 1960's. Some of Schneemann's seminal works include 'Internal Scroll' and 'Meat Joy'. The film 'Fuses' (1965), a 'controversial classic', is on show at market.

"The notorious masterpiece...a silent celebration in colour of heterosexual love making. The film unifies erotic energies within a domestic environment through cutting, superimposition and layering of abstract impressions scratched into the celluloid itself...Fuses succeeds perhaps more than any other film in objectifying the sexual streaming of the body's mind" - The Guardian, London

PREVIEW: Saturday 14 February 6-9pm
ARTIST TALK: Friday 12 March 6pm