MEDIA RELEASE

A new era for The Common Guild

The Common Guild’s current exhibition, ‘Notes from Sink’ by Janice Kerbel, ends this weekend, and with it we draw the exhibition programme at 21 Woodlands Terrace to a close.

In the short-term, our programme will be focused on projects and events, while we work on a longer-term plan to re-locate to more accessible premises, including exhibition space.

2019 will be a year of transition for The Common Guild, with a full programme of talks and events to be announced in January. Taking place throughout the year, the programme will include a number of leading international artists with whom we will be working on major projects in the future. 

The Common Guild has presented 30 exhibitions at 21 Woodlands Terrace since March 2008. The first exhibition was entitled ‘Always Begins By Degrees’, after a work by Roni Horn, citing the words of poet Emily Dickinson. It is in the spirit of these words that our next move will unfold, informed by constant discussion with artists and under-pinned by our commitment to presenting artists’ work in interesting and engaging ways and to generating world-class contemporary art experiences and discussions.

The staff and board of The Common Guild are hugely grateful to artist Douglas Gordon, whose wonderful building and extra-ordinary generosity have allowed The Common Guild to grow into what it is today. The building at 21 Woodlands Terrace has provided an ideal home for so many memorable exhibitions, many of which have been with artists showing in Scotland for the first time.

Throughout this time, the exhibition programme has run in parallel with our specially commissioned non-gallery projects that have taken place in a range of locations. Those projects have included:

• Martin Creed ‘Words and Music’ at the RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire), 2007
• ‘Jardins Publics’ with Michael Lin, Apolonija Sustersic and Richard Wright for Edinburgh International Festival, 2007
• The Rodney Graham Band featuring the Amazing Rotary Psycho-Opticon, at the ABC, 2008
• Ruth Ewan ‘The Glasgow Schools’ at Scotland Street School, 2012
• Janice Kerbel ‘Doug’ in The Jeffrey Room, The Mitchell Library, 2014
• Phil Collins ‘Tomorrow is Always too Long’ in Queen’s Park, 2014
• Ulla von Brandenburg ‘Sink Down Mountain, Rise Up Valley’ in Langside Halls, 2016
• Simon Starling and Graham Eatough ‘At Twilight’ at Holmwood House, 2016
• Janice Kerbel ‘Sink’ at The Western Baths Club, 2018

We are looking forward to developing more projects with artists in the coming years, and will continue to present a rich and varied programme of talks and events.

Katrina Brown, founding director of The Common Guild said:

‘This may be what we could think of as the end of the first chapter of The Common Guild: we’ve enjoyed a hugely fulfilling, exciting and critically successful decade from our base in Woodlands Terrace, but now is the right time for us to move on to the next phase. I am so grateful to Douglas for helping make our programme of exhibitions possible. It has been an incredible gift  - to us, to the artists, and to the public, thousands of whom have visited over the past 10 years. But I’m also excited for The Common Guild to be forging a new version for the future, while continuing to create inspiring, ground-breaking work with brilliant artists.’

The current exhibition by Janice Kerbel will close at 5pm on Sunday 2 December (please see our website for opening hours) and will be followed by the launch of Maria Fusco’s chapbooks for 'Dialecty' on Saturday 8 December. These will be the final public events in the building. 

The Common Guild will initially continue to have its office base at 21 Woodlands Terrace.

CONTACT

For more information and images please contact Kitty Anderson on 0141 428 3022 / kitty@thecommonguild.org.uk

NOTES 

1. Exhibitions

Since 2008 The Common Guild has presented 30 exhibitions at 21 Woodlands Terrace. 

Solo exhibitions:

• Abdel Abdessemed, 'TRUST ME', 2008
• Spencer Finch, 2008
• Roni Horn, 'the tiniest piece of mirror is always the whole mirror', 2009
• Mircea Cantor, 'Which light kills you’, 2010
• Martin Creed, 'Things', 2010
• Gerard Byrne, 'Images or shadows of divine things', 2010
• Robert Barry, 'Words and Music', 2010
• Tacita Dean, 2011
• Ulla von Brandenburg, 'Neue Alte Welt', 2011
• Thea Djordjadze, 'Lost Promise in a Room', 2011
• Wolfgang Tillmans, 'A New Installation, with Works from the Arts Council Collection', 2012
• Ugo Rondinone, 'primitive', 2012
• Carol Bove, 'The Foamy Saliva of a Horse', 2013
• Roman Ondák, 'Some Thing', 2013
• Gabriel Kuri, 'All probability resolves into form', 2014
• Hayley Tompkins, 'Scotland + Venice', 2014
• Corin Sworn, 'Scotland + Venice', 2014
• Duncan Campbell, 'Scotland + Venice', 2014
• Anne Hardy, 'TWIN FIELDS', 2015
• Thomas Demand, 'Daily Show', 2015
• Akram Zaatari, 'The End of Time', 2016
• Simon Starling, ‘At Twilight’, 2016
• Sharon Hayes, 'In My Little Corner of the World, Anyone Would Love You', 2016
• Steven Claydon, ‘The Archipelago of Contented Peoples: Endurance Groups’, 2017
• Katinka Bock, 'Radio Piombino', 2018
• Janice Kerbel, 'Notes from Sink / Routine for 24 Women', 2018

Group exhibitions:

• 'Always Begins By Degrees', Adel Abdessemed, Roni Horn, Anna Gaskell, Pavel Büchler, Marine Hugonnier, Marcel Broodthaers, Philippe Parreno, Cerith Wyn Evans, 2008
• “You seem the same as always, -”, Claire Barclay, Kate Davis, Olafur Eliasson, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Douglas Gordon, Gabriel Orozco, Yvonne Rainer, Richard Serra and David Shrigley, 2011
• 'HOW TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING', Zbynek Baladrán, Simon Martin, Nick Relph & Falke Pisano, 2012
• 'Slow Objects', Vanessa Billy, Edith Dekyndt and Erin Shirreff, 2017

2. Funding
The Common Guild is in receipt of Regular Funding from Creative Scotland, with the award for 2018-21 at the same level as the previous three-year period. 
 

3. Janice Kerbel
Janice Kerbel's exhibition ‘Notes from Sink’ closes on Sunday 2 December. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events including a Roundtable Conversation with contributions from James N. Hutchinson, Helen Runciman and Julia Scott on Thursday 29 November, an Exhibition Talk by Minty Donald, Artist and Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice at the University of Glasgow, on Saturday 1 December and an Engagement Workshop with G.O.D.S. (Glasgow Open Dance School) on Sunday 2 December.

4. Maria Fusco

On Saturday 8 December Maria Fusco presents ‘Sometimes Here Has No Walls', a special launch event for the new 'Dialecty' chapbooks series.