An exhibition of new work by Rachel Lowther responding to the GSA’s Archives and Collections WWI holdings and investigating recent conflicts.
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Rachel Lowther: Nothing compares to the first time |
In 1914 Carl Beard - a tall Yorkshire lad, who looked older than his 17 years,
received the flimsiest and gentlest of objects that was to result in his death by 18
on a battlefield in France. A white feather. (He had become a man.)
For her specially commissioned exhibition, which runs in the Reid Gallery at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) from 16 January to 20 March 2016, artist Rachel Lowther draws on contemporary conflicts and research she was invited to undertake into the GSA Archives and Collections’ World War I holdings. How can (or even should) art respond to bodies torn apart, flesh and bone melted by white phosphorus, children tortured or bombed as they play on a beach, families dreaming of drones and letters from grieving parents?
During WWI Fra Newbery, GSA Director at the time, wrote:“The brightest colours that Art can assume at the present time, not only fail to attract attention, but like a gaily dressed woman at a funeral, mankind wonders that she show herself at all!”
Lowther has used her research toinspirea new body of work for the Reid Gallery, including sculpture, film and embroideries that explore the human impulse for fighting and violence. Lowther questions the comfortable position of making art in a world that is anything but comfortable – the exhibition’s title a quote from a British soldier serving in Afghanistan in 2010.
Lowther has made her first complete sculptures of the human figure - measured, considered and modeled in clay over weeks, and transformed in minutes with a pickaxe handle. With the help of artist and filmmaker, Anne-Marie Copestake, the attacks have been captured in short films.
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New embroidery by artist Rachel Lowther which traces the handwriting of a WWI solider who writes poignantly how he is “once more for the firing line” |
The embroideries retrace the marks of wounded, resting and “bloodthirsty” soldiers, grief stricken parents and the immediate scars of war. A war memorial invokes inverted masculine physical prowess.
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Rachel Lowther: Tombstone on the Turnbuckle, 2014, video still. The artist's nephew providing live sports commentary as he plays with part of his vast collection of wrestling figures |
Violence infuses the intimate and domestic: banners made from floral bed sheets are printed with images from war ravaged cities, or men wrestling; a film depicts a little boy at play, acting out a brutal battle royal with a hoard of burly action figures.
Rachel Lowther’s archival research and exhibition have been commissioned by The Glasgow School of Art, with support from Museums Galleries Scotland WWI Fund.
Joanne Orr, CEO of Museums Galleries Scotland, said “This project by The Glasgow School of Art exemplifies what Museums Galleries Scotland hoped to support through our WWI Fund. We asked for new ways of commemorating the First World War and the lasting impact it has had on Scotland’s people and cultural landscape and the work by Rachel Lowther forms a lasting and thought provoking legacy for new generations.”
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Further information:
Lesley Booth
0779 941 4474
press@gsa.ac.uk
Notes for Editors
- A concurrent exhibition in the Reid Ground Floor Corridor, From the service of Venus to the worship of Mars, curated by Lowther, will feature some of the material from GSA Archives & Collections WWI Holdings which the artist found during her research.
- The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections Centre holds a substantial collection of WWI related material. This includes GSA Director, Francis (Fra) Newbery’s correspondence files; letters to and from students and staff relating to their war service and/or their attendance at GSA during the 1914‐1918 period; background material on the GSA’s Roll of Honour and records relating to the 1919 War Memorial Fund, and a number of artworks by staff and students.
- Rachel Lowther: Currently based in Glasgow, Rachel Lowther studied at Chelsea School of Art, London, the Staedelschule, Frankfurt, and Hunter College, NYC. She spent 14 years in NYC showing and curating exhibitions internationally, as well as assisting Jeff Koons and Matthew Barney and creating a permanent diorama for the American Museum of Natural History, New York, among other projects. She has most liked showing her work at Participant Inc, NYC, Thread Waxing Space, NYC, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Maschenmode/Guido Baudach, Berlin, The Sculpture Center, New York, The National Portrait Gallery, London, a hen house in Frankfurt and in demonstrations on the streets of Glasgow. In 2014, she created an exhibition for Glasgow International with Kerry Stewart, Georgina Starr and Ana Genoves in the village hall, Uplawmoor, East Renfrewshire. She is one third of DEATHANDDADA (with Amalia Theodorakopoulos and Fritz Welch), a Glasgow-based artist-run alternative space that was active in Glasgow and abroad from 2010-2013.