“We don’t want the artists to feel under any pressure when they come, which
we see as the most conducive way to produce art.”
THE PROJECT is very much intended to promote Glenfiddich as a brand rather
than simply provide altruistic support for challenging contemporary art, and
falls in line with new thinking on marketing the product.
“The marketing of the brand was leaning toward a more contemporary look and
appeal anyway,” Andy confirmed, “and the art project fell in neatly with that.
It fulfils a number of roles for the company on both a local and international
level. It provides a different marketing angle, and we get coverage in places we
wouldn’t normally reach – here you are talking to me for the Arts Journal, for
example.
“So that is valuable, and it also provides added value to the visitor centre
aspect of the business. It creates a profile as part of our overall portfolio of
sponsorship activities in other areas. Basically we are looking to create a new
set of associations for the brand, and maybe for Scotland as well.
“We are not looking for instant returns here – we take a long-term view. This
is an industry where patience is defiantly a virtue. You make your product, then
you have to leave it alone for ten or fifteen or twenty years or more. It is a
brave move for a distiller to get involved in contemporary arts, and perhaps in
another business the pressure of getting instant results might be too much. That
doesn’t apply here – we are used to being patient and to letting things develop
and mature slowly, and that applies to this project as well.”
The project got underway again this year in early June, and will involve
eight artists, or nine depending on whether you count the duo of you Little
Warsaw as one or two. The full line-up of artists for 2004 follows, with brief
biographies:
David Blyth lives in Aberdeen. His work is an autobiographical
response to the local natural environment and, in particular, to the wildlife of
the North East of Scotland. His sculptural objects take the guise of functional
devices, props and instruments often intended for use in the field, an attempt
to discover new ways of communicating with the natural world.
Christine Borland is from Scotland, living near Loch Lomond. She
relates the History of Medicine to contemporary medical practice with an
emphasis on areas of public interface. Combining new techniques and technology
used in medical education with ancient crafts technologies like porcelain
manufacture, she proposes far-reaching ethical questions for us to consider both
as a society and on an intimate, timeless personal level.
Stéfanie Bourne lives and works in Paris. Her multidisciplinary
practice explores our conception of an artwork and proposes alternatives to
object based forms. Her practice ‘Vernacular’ engages in a variety of
social contexts. Replacing the traditional end product as artwork, the protocol
is materialised at these occasions in often ephemeral forms, as objects,
publications, events, performances, meetings, etc.
Louise Hopkins is originally from England, now based in Glasgow. Her
drawings and paintings subtly explore ideas of time, language and silence,
control and chaos and the essence of the man-made, the ‘natural’ and the
man-disrupted. She works with given surfaces i.e. sheet music, cartoon strips
and world maps.
Little Warsaw are a two-man team from Budapest. The basic
characteristics of their approach developed through the question of how
contemporary art can be connected to its social and cultural context. Their work
investigates the transformation of public spaces after the after the soviet
colonial past.
Matthieu Manche is from France, now living and working in Tokyo,
Japan. He investigates corporal function/dysfunction of objects by using diverse
media such as installation, photography, video and fashion shows. He is
currently working on product design projects combined with activities in the
field of contemporary art.
Wilhelm Scherübl comes from Austria. His sculptural interest lies in
the non-static, the ephemeral and the organic. The transformation of plants,
humans, communities and other organisms are at the centre of his concerns. His
installations, paintings and sculptures are made from plant and other organic
materials.
Ross Sinclair lives in Kilcreggan near Loch Lomond. Since he had the
words Real Life tattoed on his back in 1994, Ross Sinclair has produced
performances, installations, photography and video exploring the political and
the personal ramifications of the culture in which we are involved, asking us
what constitutes the 'real' in society where so much is rendered
inauthentic.
The 2004 exhibition runs at Glenfiddich Distillery, Dufftown, until 30
September, 2004. The gallery is open Monday to Saturday from 11am-5pm, and
Sunday from noon-5pm.
© Kenny Mathieson, 2004
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