/§ 3/ “IE i. GRENNAN 8. SPERANDIO — GLASGOW 16/25 Gallery Of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Sun 17 Jun .0.
Still from digital video animation The Liquid Pavilion 2000
Grennan & Sperandio, a transatlantic duo based in New York and Manchester, are best known for their comic books. These graphically arresting combinations of drawing and digitally manipulated photographs are used to break down the traditional barriers between the public at large and gallery-based art. The comics reconfigure the supposedly mundane lives of nursery nurses, cleaners and the like, presenting them as everyday superheroes. This retrospective in effect documents these various public art projects - most of the comic books are distributed free of charge to participants — adding a further layer of comment on restrictive, elitist gallery
practice.
The pair’s need for inclusive, wide-ranging distribution of their works has led them into creating digital animations, retaining their day-glo comic book style, for broadcast on television and via the internet. Their latest foray into moving images, Glasgow 16/25, has been commissioned by GOMA and explores the lives of Glaswegians aged between 16 and 25, weaving together eight short narratives ranging in subject matter from nights out clubbing to romantic sunsets over the city’s skyline.
On the evidence of the Glasgow project, and a similar work in Preston, Grennan and Sperandio have some way to go before they can successfully appropriate their new mass media form, and it’s the perfect re-workings of the comic book format that are the main draw here. (Jack Mottram)
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BLUE SKIES
Stills, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Apr 0.
B/i/e Skies is a digital. interactive art project that highlights the impact emergent technologies lia\.e had on our sense of tune and place. With a flick of the tingei and a click on the mouse. we can send our electronic egos shooting off dons/n the information lllgllll.‘.’il\. overcoming the physical barriers of coininuiiicatioii.
’lo illustrate how coinii‘iinication has become a time machine. \‘Jllltllllgl its way between ditteient states of reality. the artists have chosen acti\.ities such as eating and placed them into the technological arena. The conceptual premise is interesting but the outcome isn't. As you flick and click \.our way aiound this exhibition. the one element that fans to interact is the imagination.
Eat are fi\e artists xixho produce Recipe which includes footage of a transatlantic dinner party conducted Via satellite. The \’ll€t| ingredient missing here is interest. Bewerle; Hood's footage of a couple dancing the tango
Catriona Grant’s Genuine Offer Of Friendship
is projected onto the floor. It takes tv-ro to tango. but here you'd do better employing a quick side step.
Catriona Grant's CD-Roin Genuine Offer Of Friendship is an interactive database that matches potential friends. indubitably the way many re!ationships ".‘JIH form in future. Colin Andrex'ss presents old footage of an Arctic mapping expedition tnat briefly CLll)ll\’ZthS.
Technology induces an acute desire for instantaneeus gratification. which this C‘XllllMlOll fails to satiate. ilsabella \"x’eiri
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PRIMARILY smile-.1... I Generator Projects, Dundee. unri Sun 29 Apr 000
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Collins Gallery, Glz.».g until Sat 5 i“ i» "“ f
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BROWN FIELD
Market, Glasgow, until Sat 28 A,» 0...
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THE LIST 35