Glasgow International: The Quest Begins

Last night Glasgow International opened and I dutifully went to all of the shows I could sneak my way into. Here's where I found free booze:

Jim Lambie at GoMA

I was excited about this. I thought it might be swish. This is a major show in a major space by one of the Glasgow art titans. I had fanciful visions of champagne and canapes. That was before I heard they were expecting 3000 people. Then I had visions of long queues and feeling stuffy. Unfortunately, I was eerily psychic.

This is what's appropriate at a large-scale opening: You walk into the main exhibition area and scan the work and the crowd and figure out where your friends are. Once you have established the location of your community, you join the queue for drinks. If this queue exists at all, it should be just long enough to scan the room for art and friends and enemies once more and perhaps have a little flirty banter with the person ahead of you. Then, armed with your beverage (preferably a special cocktail, nice beer or drinkable wine) you can swoop over to your friends and laugh and point at the people art around you (in an amused and constructive way).

This is what actually happened: We arrived quite early and had to line up to get into the main room. Once inside, we could see no art nor individuals in the heaving mass of humanity crawling about the hall. There was an epic queue for drinks, and since the art was invisible, we didn't even pretend to look for it. After waiting for a long time in the stagnant line, it started to move quickly. This was because they had run dry. Half and hour in. Not a good sign. A stampede to the upstairs bar ensued. I sent J and tried to look at art. As there was no alcohol in the main room anymore, half the population cleared as well and it was possible to at least catch some glimpses and spot some friends. J never came back down, so I had to go upstairs to the permanent collection (i.e. not what I was there to see). He was pinned into a room choked with people all desperately glugging. This wasn't even a sign of the alcoholism of the nation, everyone really was just hot and thirsty and tired by now. I grabbed my glass of wine from him and immediately got back in line for a second one. Good thing, too, because they were out once more a few minutes later.

Now, I know it's not my inherent right to expect a glass or two of wine at a regular art opening. But this was a big event on the social calendar. Stops should have been pulled. It was reasonable for me to expect magic. If you are going to print that many invitations, you need to expect that many people and plan for them and not make them feel like inconvenient cattle. It is not appropriate for your guests to have to wait so long for a drink. Some of them were probably important, even. And having security guards barking at us and barring us from already-crowded rooms was awkward. We were invited attendees, not bargain hunters banging down the doors at 6 am on Boxing Day. A little civility would have been nice. 

Poor form GoMA.

4 out of 10 glasses

Jonathan Scott at the Glasgow Art Club

Perfectly appropriate variety and quantity for a smaller opening scheduled in between bigger events. Plus nice washrooms.

8 out of 10 glasses

xxx

Jim Lambie's Afterparty

The real afterparty had a stupidly rigid ticket system. These puppies were hard to come by and each invite only admitted one. Poor. People need to bring dates.

Anyway, just up the way from that party, Jim Lambie opened one of his studio spaces, brought in beer and a DJ, curated a wee show, and threw a bunch of glitter on the ground. Anyone was invited. I didn't stay that long because I had a ticket to the real party (thanks A!), but I thought it was a super generous gesture and I liked the glitter and the art.

9 out of 10 glasses

The GI Launch Party at the Social

Studio Warehouse has installed a bar in their gallery for the duration of GI and this was the first event. It was pretty good, ample drink tickets for a range of beer/wine/cocktails, DJs in the slick indoor bar area, live bands playing under the railway arches outside. There were even waiters carting trays of snacks in a startling admission that we cannot live by free beer alone. Loads of pretty people, but not enough for toes to be trampled. It felt like an amped-up version of a typical Glasgow art scene party and I guess that was an appropriate vibe for the evening. The dancing was quite late coming, only getting started as I was leaving (these are not related facts) and I also was not a fan of the strict ticket system, but as all my dear ones managed to score some in the end, I'm only deducting one glass for that.

Good job, folks!

8 glasses out of 10

I'm already tired, but there's three more days of this. Will anyone achieve 10 glasses? Stay tuned...