Still Glasgow

Including works by Bert Hardy and Oscar Marzaroli to Alan Dimmick and Iseult Timmermans, this exhibition spotlights the Scottish metropolis and its pictures from the Nineteen Forties to the current, however above all it’s a file of the individuals who have referred to as Glasgow house

Iseult Timmermans, 10 Red Road Court, 2012. © Iseult Timmermans.

Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
29 November 2025 – 13 June 2026

by BETH WILLIAMSON

There are quite a lot of methods you could possibly perceive the title of this exhibition. Still Glasgow, we’re instructed, “celebrates its [Glasgow’s] multiple entwined histories – of culture, class, protest, humour and ambition – but looks beyond nostalgia and asks how the city can imagine its future”. Through the show of about 80 works from the Nineteen Forties to the current day, chosen from Glasgow Life Museums’ assortment, the exhibition appears on the metropolis and its pictures. Perhaps, then, the title refers to nonetheless photographic photographs of Glasgow, however then it consists of shifting photographs too. Or perhaps it gestures to the concept that the guts of Glasgow and its folks continues to be the identical, regardless of enormous modifications throughout the interval involved. The inhabitants of Glasgow has shifted massively because the Nineteen Forties, however as the favored slogan goes “People Make Glasgow” whoever they’re. In 2013, Glasgow metropolis council ran a £500,000 marketing campaign to advertise the slogan as a model or identification for town, and it has caught. Now, it could possibly usually be seen graffitied on railway sidings or bridges and folks nonetheless discuss it. This exhibition, then, reveals us a number of the individuals who make Glasgow previous and current.

Eric Watt, Returning from the Game, about Nineteen Sixties/70s.

There is a marked shift in how town and its persons are represented on this exhibition. Broadly talking, the sooner photographs within the exhibition had been taken by male documentary photographers, working alone and representing their topics as they noticed them. This group consists of well-known names comparable to Bert Hardy and Oscar Marzaroli, each of whom had notable careers in photojournalism elsewhere however are nonetheless remembered for his or her images of Glasgow and its folks. I recall my father, a passionate newbie photographer himself, introducing me to Marzaroli’s pictures and giving me a duplicate of Shades of Grey: Glasgow 1956-1987 (photographs by Marzaroli and phrases by William McIlvanney) to take with me after I moved from Glasgow to London – I nonetheless have it. Images comparable to The Castlemilk Lads (1963) are immediately recognisable as Marzaroli’s and convey a way of familiarity to the exhibition. The unnamed boys within the {photograph} appear to jostle for place in entrance of the digital camera. They stand on a grassy slope with high-rise flats behind them. They are in Castlemilk, one of many largest housing estates in Europe on the time, and grasp at their momentary fame. What is unimaginable about this picture is that, because the archives present, Marzaroli captured it in a single take. It is troublesome to know what attracted him to the environments and folks he photographed. He photographed extensively in Glasgow’s Gorbals space, as an example, together with his well-known Golden Haired Lass (1964) and it has been stated that he wished to seize areas like this that had been quick disappearing. Yet he captured different artists and their topics too. Two images that try this on this exhibition are Joan Eardley in her Townhead Studio and The Samson Children in Joan Eardley’s Studio, Townhead, each taken in 1962.

Joseph McKenzie, Untitled ({photograph} depicting ladies petting canine). © Joseph McKenzie.

Children and poverty are widespread topics on this exhibition and it’s not simply the area of Marzaroli. Hardy’s The Gorbals Boys and Untitled – Two Girls Sitting by Kitchen Sink, each from 1948, give a barely early view of such topics. Joseph McKenzie’s Gorbals Children and Girls Petting Dog (each 1964-65) present yet one more view modern with that of Marzaroli. Eric Watt’s Girl at Chalk-Marked Wall (c1960s) is an uncommon instance in color from this era.

Eric Watt, Girl At Chalk-marked Wall, about Nineteen Sixties.

The chronologically later photographs within the exhibition are sometimes, although not solely, collective and brought by girls working collectively of their communities in Glasgow. By the mid-Seventies we see the beginings of those types of initiatives with What’s It to You? (1975), a collaboration between Elsa Stansfield and Madelon Hooykaas within the early years of video artwork. Combining pictures and textual content with recorded and dwell video, interviews with members of the general public modified the work day by day. While the unique work is misplaced, the remaining images present the Barras and Sauchiehall Street areas together with transient however fairly profound questions requested concerning the present: Have you grown as a lot as town? Has town modified as a lot as you? What are you on the lookout for? What are you providing?

Joseph McKenzie, Gorbals Children 1964-65 (1964-65). © Joseph McKenzie.

The 2016 work Easels, made by Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, presents reflections on the illustration of artists as a gaggle identification or artwork scene. Photographed in varied studios throughout town between 2015 and 2016, it represents a really specific facet of Glasgow and, to my thoughts, feels considerably misplaced in an exhibition that in any other case captures the spirit of the place. Much extra becoming, maybe, are the number of photographers and images that seize the commonplace actions throughout the years: Marzaroli’s Scottish Cup Final, Hampden Park (1965), Watt’s May Day (1977) and Alan Dimmick’s Franz Ferdinand, The Captain’s Rest, Glasgow (2007) all come to thoughts.

Social housing and regeneration initiatives have been important throughout Glasgow within the final 80 years. Areas such because the Gorbals and Easterhouse photographed by Marzaroli and Hardy have been remodeled. Documenting native communities now’s totally different and, in some cases, lived expertise informs how they’re represented and what they symbolize. For occasion, Walking in My Shoes was a pictures challenge by younger Roma folks dwelling within the Govanhill space of Glasgow. Showing their neighbourhood by their eyes, we see photographs comparable to Untitled – Family in Window (2012) by Anetta Tancosova and Untitled – Barbed Wire and Church (2012) by Nikola Krugova.

Iseult Timmermans, 10 Red Road Court, 2012. © Iseult Timmermans.

Some of the strongest photographs on this exhibition are from Iseult Timmermans’ challenge 10 Red Road Court (2012). The Red Road Flats are well-known in Glasgow, despite the fact that they now not exist. They had been constructed within the Nineteen Sixties as a part of an bold social housing coverage. From 2003, they grew to become house to many asylum seekers and refugees coming to Glasgow. Then, between 2010 and 2015, they had been demolished. Timmermans labored by a group studio and artistic programme to allow remaining residents to doc the flats in additional than 300 photographs and so seize one thing of the place and the individuals who had lived there. It is a robust challenge by way of ambition and affect.

Khansa Aslam, Family on the Roundabout. © Khansa Aslam.

Rashida Hanif, Shazia Rani, Khansa Aslam, Zubaidah Azad and others all seize the variety and vigour of up to date Glasgow, a vigorous and open metropolis the place folks could be themselves. This group challenge, in 2023, ran by the Glendale Women’s Cafe within the Pollokshields space of Glasgow, a secure area the place folks can come collectively, and the individuals had been impressed by Watt’s earlier images to make others that mirrored their very own expertise of Glasgow. Working with photographer Robin Mitchell they captured modern scenes, 12 of that are included on this exhibition. This challenge is emblematic of that shift I discussed at the beginning the place, as this exhibition appears to say, more and more it’s the folks of Glasgow, not photographers, who discover methods to symbolize themselves. People nonetheless make Glasgow.

Zubaidah Azad, Friends Getting Together. © Zubaidah Azad.