Wednesday 22 October 2008

SEAGATE GALLERY - 1980'S


The Seagate Gallery & Printmakers Workshop opened in 1986.
I remember visiting an exhibition by David Mach they put on in 1986.
This was David's first major show in Dundee and the exhibits were all installations.
It had a kind of local industrial theme with Jute, Jam & Journalism being represented, but in David's unique contemporary style of multitude sculptures.
Jute was depicted in a piece using 4000 jute bobbins.
Jam was portrayed using 2500 jam jars, some filled to form an image of a shark and man (as seen in the photo above).
The Journalism artwork was a massive swirling sculpture made out of thousands of magazines, with office equipment scattered in amongst them.
Davids work has since gone on to be known around the globe.

They also used to put on shows regularly by local amateur artists.

Although it opened its doors in summer '86, its official grand opening event didn't take place until November 1986 - with local jazz act Havana Swing providing the entertainment.

A few years later, I managed to snap a couple of photos (above) at an exhibition there around 1989.
The pieces are by Francisco Cabral, an artist from Trinidad.

3 comments:

  1. Remember it well. They used to have some great exhibitions. There was an opening night when Gerry Mitchell's band played it was really weird. He was a local artist/musician.They began to play what I would call free form jazz at a furious pace and really load. I became entranced, almost like the music was talking to me directly about the nature of the cosmos. I remeber this especially due to the ending of the experience which was a sudden end of the music like all the musicians involved were one too, and I felt shocked to be in the gallery. That feeling has always made me wonder what the purpose of music is about.

    Jean.

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  2. I am told by Willie Clark that the "throne" is by a Brazilian artist, Francisco Cabrelli [?] c.1998

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  3. Thanks for the info Jane.
    However, after double checking, I found out you were wrong on 3 aspects - his country of origin, his surname and the date!
    I have since adjusted the caption accordingly with the accurate info.
    Cheers GG

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