28 February 2020
Amazon
I followed the controversy around ‘The Glasgow Effect’ project when it hit social media at the beginning of 2016. I thought the image of the chips used in presenting the project was heavy-handed and misleading and could understand why so many people took offence. Looking past the controversy I saw that it was a really interesting idea and was excited to see how it developed.
I read more about Harrison’s work and watched some videos on YouTube of her talking about her past projects and really enjoyed what she was saying and the work she’d made in the past.
In January 2017 I attended the event at the GFT and while I found a lot of what she had to say very interesting but I felt that there was simply too much information that she was trying to cram into a single talk/presentation and as a result some of the strongest ideas were lost in the mix. I was a bit underwhelmed.
This book fixes all that and properly documents everything about the project in a way that the GFT talk couldn’t.
I absolutely loved reading this and couldn’t put it down.
I can’t remember ever reading such a deep and engaging documentation of an artist’s practice, going right through from their art school days.
How she ties together a history of post-war Glasgow planning, discussion of her own practice and life as an artist in the 21st century, a family story, a critique of the international art scene – it’s brilliant. The interconnected-ness of everything is so fully realised.
She might be my favourite artist now.
Utterly inspiring.
I’m going to be buying this book to give to friends as presents.
10/10