Sogo Arts is one of Glasgow’s newest galleries.
It was founded by the team that created the renowned Sogo magazine. The gallery is designed to engage with artists out-with of the normal gallery system. It is focussed on how art and artists can engage with public discourse and how the wider creative industries in Glasgow can engage more with public life.
Our first show will be the inaugural exhibition of the Unlikely Clan. Formed as a response to the lack of thoughtful narrative painting currently being shown, the clan is a loose grouping of several Glasgow based painters. All successful in their own right, they have decided to explore the possibilities of showing work together. Based in classical painting, the tradition of narrative storytelling in this medium is almost radical viewed in the context of most contemporary art practices.
This iteration of the clan includes Cherylene Dyer, Frank McNab, Jane Gardiner, Todd Garner and Nichol Wheatley. Their first show, which has been in planning for over a year is called, ‘Dance once with everyone’.
Up next will be an outstanding photographic exhibition by the artist and musician Bob Hardy. Bob needs no introduction as one of the founder members of Franz Ferdinand. A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, his exhibition ‘Show Days No Show Days’, is a selection of work made during a recent tour. While his work with the band took him round the world Bob started to photograph his surroundings from hotel rooms to backstage. The work is shot in the style of Neue Sachlichkeit – New Objectivity, in that the work is more akin to documentary photography in that it focuses only on the visible form of the image itself.
Next year we will be showing the work of photographer Brian Sweeney. ‘The Great Stadiums of the North’. is an exhibition that has been 25 years in the making and the time has finally come to show it in it’s entirety. Shot in the Highlands, the Western Isles, Stornoway, Orkney, the Faroe Isles and Iceland it is a record of small football stadiums and pitches that in many ways reflect who we are. Brian is not stranger to Sogo, he has photographed several editorial pieces for the magazine as well as having other work featured.
There will be much, much more happening in the coming year, from events, artists discussions and the launch of the ‘Sogo Salon Sessions’ chaired by our good friend and internationally acclaimed journalist and Sogo board member David Pratt.
We hope you enjoy looking at the web-site. It would be remiss of us not to direct you towards the shop where you will find all the back issues of the magazine, exhibition catalogues and a selection of fine art prints for sale.