I AM at my 14th opening event of the Glasgow International, when the walls start to spin.
Standing in the half-lit gloom of a disused factory space at 64 Osbourne Street, I think I'll have to concede that sleep-deprived, artaddled and probably the worse for cheap wine, I have finally snapped under the pressure of the city's new festival of contemporary art.
It takes a while to realise that the white wall spinning on an unseen axis is, in fact, just one more piece in a sinister sculptural jigsaw put together by artists Smith/Stewart.
Along with a vertical pole slapping against the floor in a sinister and sexual manner, and a terrifying scaffolding rod spinning horizontally above head-height, the wall seems an eerie metaphor for intimacy: rhythmic, shifting, threatening and exhilarating. Each piece is perfectly calibrated to flirt with danger, missing adjacent fittings and fixtures by carefully calculated centimetres.
Smith and Stewart both work at Glasgow School of Art, and are better known in the city for their earlier video work. Their recent sculptural works have been seen in cities such as New York, but not yet at home.
Their presence at the Glasgow International highlights the perennial Glasgow conundrum of a city packed to the rafters with international artists, whose key works are often only seen overseas.
The show encapsulates much of what I've seen at the Glasgow International: an eye for site-specific detail, a willingness to open up, Tardis-like, the city's hidden spaces.
The best pieces in the festival are all in this vein. Maverick, a giant mosaic head bearing the likeness of its creator, artist Alex Frost, appears to have rolled on to a piece of waste ground just off the Gallowgate. It lies marooned in a sea of rubble, like some giant piece of classical statuary, felled by an unseen, but almighty, hand.
Steven Hurrell's City Dreaming fills the stunning architecture of the Mitchell Library with white weather balloons, each tethered to the ground by a perfect, polished copper sphere in which the room's ornate ceiling is reflected. Old and new Glasgow are held in a perfect circular equilibrium. The Polish artist Monica Sosnowska's M10 is a confusing labyrinth set in a deserted Catalan theme bar in the Briggait, where you open door after successive door into smaller and smaller rooms, calculated according to Polish governmental specifications for the amount of living space required by families.
Over at Tramway, This Peaceful War is also preoccupied with space and place, bringing to Europe works from Mexico's Jumex Collection of Contemporary Art for the first time.
It is a melancholy experience. Anri Sala's haunting video shows the abandoned Tirana Zoo circled by wild dogs. Doug Aitken's Diamond Sea is a heartbreaking video installation, showing the sublime and terrifying beauty of a vast Namibian diamond mine forbidden to visitors for 100 years, and as lonely and inhospitable as the surface of Mars. The festival officially draws to a close on Monday. Many shows in the city's bigger venues will last longer.
Throughout, there have been reminders of the respect Glasgow artists have earned in the international art world.
But it has also been a constant reminder of how that reputation has been earned. In a Saltmarket shop, an opening-night crowd sat in impressive silence, far more interested in watching a rolling programme of video art than in social chit-chat. In a Dennistoun flat, artist-led gallery Mary Mary hosted the liveliest opening of the fortnight. At the Arches, the intertwining of the city's art and music scenes f lourished.
With the second Glasgow International looming next April, it's already time to address the future.
Scraped together on a tiny budget, Glasgow International has punched well above its weight.
While visitors and journalists have mused on just what it is that makes Glasgow artists so important and successful, the answer has been right in front of them: commitment and hard work. What the International needs now is strategic focus. Is it a festival aimed at bringing works from home and overseas to a Glasgow audience? Is it aimed at bringing key international figures to see homegrown talent? Is it both? There are questions of lifespan and frequency.
Can it work as an annual event or would it do better in a different rhythm? In terms of quality, the first Glasgow International has delivered well on a modest investment. Were quality to slip, the city has a much more important reputation to lose than just the future of the festival itself. What's needed now is a bigger budget and a better practical and administrative structure to help Glasgow reap the rewards.
For full programme information go to www. glasgowinternational. org.
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