GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL

Taking place every other year, and combining some of the characteristics of a conventional arts biennial with a more event-based experience, Glasgow International is a unique event in the international calendar.
Glasgow International is Scotland’s largest festival for contemporary art, taking place over three weeks every two years across the city of Glasgow. Renowned as a centre for contemporary art, the festival draws on the city’s strengths as a vibrant and distinctive centre of artistic production and display. Combining the characteristics of a visual arts biennial with an open submission model for artists and curators based in the city, Glasgow International is a truly unique event in the European cultural calendar.

The Festival had two annual editions in 2005 and 2006 before changing to its current format in 2008. 2018 saw the festival return for the eighth edition, and sixth in the biennial format.

Glasgow International provides a unique platform, combining a strong interwoven offer of commissions and exhibitions by both artists living locally and internationally, in both large-scale and familiar public venues as well as smaller less conventional sites. Glasgow has an unusually rich visual arts sector, described by The Guardian as the ‘most developed arts scene outside London’.
In our work, we aim to:
– Facilitate, commission and nurture the production of internationally resonant artwork of timeliness and critical integrity
– Support and collaborate with locally-based artists and arts organizations to create ambitious new works and exhibitions
– Deepen and develop artistic discourse between locally and internationally based artists and audiences through talks, events, and visits
– Extend the art experience across the city and its communities by showing work in non-traditional spaces, as well as museums and galleries
The project developed in time with input from notable curators and curatorial teams:
Ewa Brodin, Britt Ignell and Lasse Lindqvist: Experience – Dissolution (GIBCA 2001)
Carl Michael von Hausswolf: Against All Evens. (GIBCA 2003)
Sara Arrhenius: more!then this – Negotiating Realities (GIBCA 2005)
Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg: Rethinking Dissent (GIBCA 2007)
Celia Prado and Johan Pousette: What a Wonderful World (GIBCA 2009)
Sarat Maharaj, Dorothee Albrecht, Stina Edblom, Gertrud Sandqvist: Pandemonium – Art in a Time of Creativity Fever (GIBCA 2011)
Katerina Gregos, Andjeas Ejiksson, Ragnar Kjartansson, Claire Tancons, Joanna Warsza: Play! Recapturing the Radical Imagination (GIBCA 2013)
Elvira Dyangani Ose: A Story within a Story… (GIBCA 2015)
Nav Haq: WheredoIendandyoubegin – On Secularity (GIBCA 2017)
The biennial is initiated by Gothenburg City Cultural Committee, and since 2006 the organizer for GIBCA is Röda Sten Konsthall.