The Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) is the main gallery of

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland. GoMA offers a programme of temporary exhibitions and workshops. GoMA displays work by local and international artists as well as addressing contemporary social issues through its major biannual projects.

History

Opened in 1996, the Gallery of Modern Art is housed in a neoclassical building in Royal Exchange Square in the heart of Glasgow city centre. Built in 1778 as the

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...

of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a wealthy Glasgow Tobacco Lord who made his fortune through the triangular slave trade, the building has undergone a series of different uses. It was bought in 1817 by the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland Public Limited Company () is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Sco ...

who later moved onto Buchanan Street; it then became the Royal Exchange. Reconstruction for this use was undertaken by David Hamilton between 1827 and 1832 and resulted in many additions to the building, namely the Corinthian pillars to the Queen Street facade, the cupola above and the large hall to the rear of the old house. In 1954, after purchasing the building for £105,000 in 1949, Glasgow District Libraries moved the Stirling's Library into the building. It also housed the Library of Patents and the Commercial Library. It was described as:

"A magnificent hall, 110 ft. by 60 ft.,... divided in to three parts by a double row of monolithic Corinthian columns and spanned by a 30ft high richly ornamented arched ceiling."

Special book-cases were aligned with the columns, lit by fluorescent lighting to illuminate the books. There was a collection of over 100 books on the pictorial arts, 300 volumes of music books and scores, and 800 books for parents. display units were used to display items. There was a magazine room with seating for fifty readers. When the library returned to Miller Street, the building was refurbished to house the city's contemporary art collection.

Today

Since its opening in 1996, the gallery has hosted several million visitors. It has a dedicated Education and Access studio, facilitating workshops and artists talks and in the basement a Learning Library. The building also contains a café, free Internet access terminals, multimedia, art, and general book-lending facilities. Exhibits include works by

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

, Sebastião Salgado, and Andy Warhol as well as Scottish artists such as John Bellany and Ken Currie. The mirrored pediment on the exterior of the building is by artist Niki de Saint Phalle, entitled ''Tympanum'' (1996). Saint Phalle also installed the mirrored vestibule to the gallery. In front of the gallery, on the Queen Street pavement, stands an

equestrian statue An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin ''eques'', meaning 'knight', deriving from ''equus'', meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a ...

of the Duke of Wellington sculpted by Carlo Marochetti in 1844.Council in road cone statue plea
''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'', 16 February 2005 The statue usually has a traffic cone on its head; for many years the authorities regularly removed cones, only for them to be replaced. The jauntily placed cone has come to represent, particularly in tourist guidebooks, the city's light-hearted attitude to authority. Two exceptions were on the occasion of Glasgow hosting the 2002

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

final, when the cone was replaced by a football-patterned hat bearing the logo of one of the tournament sponsors, Amstel, and in June 2010, on the run-up to the opening of hotel chain citizenM in Glasgow, when the cone was replaced with a 'feel free' branded glitter cone. Around the time of the Independence Referendum, a

saltire A saltire, also called Saint Andrew's Cross or the crux decussata, is a Heraldry, heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross. The word comes from the Middle French , Medieval Latin ("stirrup"). From its use as field sign, the saltire cam ...

was attached to the cone. The cone was painted gold during the 2012 Olympics as a celebration of Scotland's contribution to the record haul of gold medals won by Team GB. A gold cone was again placed on the statue for the

2014 Commonwealth Games The 2014 Commonwealth Games (), officially known as the XX Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Glasgow 2014 (; ), were an international multi-sport event celebrated in the tradition of the Commonwealth Games as governed by the Commonwea ...

. On 'Brexit Day' (31 January 2020), pro-European supporters placed a cone painted to represent the EU flag on the statue's head.

References

External links

Museum website

Photographs of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow
{{authority control Houses completed in 1778 Modern art museums Category A listed buildings in Glasgow Art museums and galleries in Glasgow 1770s establishments in Scotland Contemporary art galleries in Scotland Art museums and galleries established in 1996 1996 establishments in Scotland Neoclassical architecture in Scotland

History

Today

See also

References

External links