And that said art is accessible to the public. You just have to wander in.
More than that, universities also offer access via their exhibition spaces. This can be a sometimes overlooked public asset, although the Hunterian gallery in Glasgow and the Talbot Rice gallery in Edinburgh are very much part of the artistic fabric of their respective cities.
And as well as their art collections, universities are also home to interesting and important cultural artefacts, whether they be historical books or maps or scientific models.
What that means is there is always something interesting to be found on our nation’s campuses. So here are 10 campus exhibitions worth a visit right now.
Suzanne Lacy: Between the Door and the Street
Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, closes today
Hurry, hurry. This is the last day of this exhibition of the work of pioneering American artist Suzanne Lacy whose work is a mixture of reportage and female activism. She brings an urgent, engaged concern to the issues that face women in the contemporary world and finds a way to reframe them in an artistic context. The exhibition is “a textbook example of socially engaged art practice,” according to the art critic Susan Mansfield.
This Fragile Earth
Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, runs until August 8
Is it the end of the world as we know it? The artists brought together in this collection, a collaboration with the Fleming Collection, certainly have been worrying away at that question for the last four or five decades. This is an exhibition about northernness, the scars of history and the threat of climate change.
James Morrison’s monumental Arctic Mural (six metres long) sets the tone, but there is also work from Frances Walker, Glen Onwin, Will Maclean and Elizabeth Ogilvie, as well as the American-born, Scottish-based landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper, whose black-and-white landscape images have a compelling austerity to them.
Imagined Norths
Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen, runs until tomorrow
This weekend also sees the last chance to see this exhibition from the University of Aberdeen’s rare book and museum collections. An investigation into the role of monsters and fairies in the Scottish imagination, it offers a satisfying juxtaposition of beautiful old books and one of Scotland’s most beautiful contemporary libraries.
Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature
Hunterian Gallery, University of Glasgow, runs until May 4
In 1989 the film-maker and artist Derek Jarman was working on his film The Garden, planting his own garden at his isolated cottage in Dungeness, right at the end of England, and working on a performance installation at Glasgow’s Third Eye Centre (which later became the CCA). Inspired by his diary entries from that year, this show brings together some of his own work alongside that of contemporary artists including Andrew Black, Luke Fowler and Jade de Montserrat in an exhibition that explores Jarman’s engagement with the landscape and his part in the UK’s queer history. There’s something of a Jarman revival at the moment with a new edition of Tony Parke’s epic biography of the man back in print, 25 years after its original publication. There’s also an ongoing programme of Jarman screenings at the Glasgow Film Theatre, with Blue on tomorrow and Caravaggio scheduled for April 27.
Stage Spectacle Story Peking Opera
Advanced Research Centre, University of Glasgow, runs until April 17
This short-run exhibition at Glasgow University’s Advanced Research Centre offers a chance to learn more about the most dominant form of opera in China, one that combines music, mime, martial arts and singing. Containing authentic costumes, performance excerpts and historical props, it explores the four archetypal figures of Peking Opera. And on the last day – April 17 – there will be a special drop-in event offering interactive sessions allowing visitors to take part in painting masks, a tea ceremony and to have the chance to feel the weight of one of the costumes.
A Big World of Small Things
Lamb Gallery, University of Dundee, runs until April 25
Size isn’t everything, etc, etc. This exhibition drawn from Dundee University’s museum collections is a celebration of the minute and the microscopic. And, yes, microscopic slides are part of the display, alongside molecular models. An exhibition that requires close attention.
Walker & Bromwich: Searching for a Change of Consciousness
Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, runs until May 31
You can’t go wrong with inflatables. Over the years Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich have engaged with local communities – from working-class Wales to Danish anarchists and even the Indigenous people of the Colombian Amazon – to create art that is heartfelt, socially engaged and often rather funny. The current Talbot Rice exhibition, which draws together several projects mounted over the years, reflects all of that as well as their love of blow-up art. Expect to meet the Serpent of Capitalism when you visit. He’s a big ’un.
Art Deco Scotland: Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age
Glasgow School of Art, runs until April 28
Tying in with a new book by Bruce Peter, Professor of Design History at the Glasgow School of Art, this exhibition in the Reid Building looks at the influence of the Art Deco movement on Scottish architecture and design during the interwar years as seen in cinemas, factories and even ocean liners. Although principally associated with the Roaring Twenties, the Art Deco influence in Scotland was very much alive and kicking into the 1930s long after the Stock Market crash of 1929.
Say No! Art, Activism and Feminist Refusal
Wardlaw Museum, University of St Andrews, runs until May 11
Combining contemporary artworks with archive material from the 1960s and 1970s, this exhibition is both a call to arms and a celebration of historical resistance. Featuring work by artists including Alberta Whittle, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Petra Bauer and Sweatmother, and running the gamut from tapestry and ceramics to film and photography, Say No! Engages with all the hot button issues: domestic violence, sex work, homophobia and racism. As Toni Morrison once said, “the best art is political”.
Degree Shows
Glasgow School of Art, May 30-June 8; Edinburgh College of Art, May 30-June 6; Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, May 24- June 1; Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, June 6-15
And finally … It will soon be that time of year again when the nation’s art students show their work to the world. There’s always a bouncing sense of energy and freshness to such shows and, of course, the chance to spot future stars.
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