When Franz Ferdinand sang of going to a party at Glasgow’s Transmission gallery in their 2005 hit single, Do You Want To? the libidinous lyric was not only a cheeky nod to the band’s roots in the city’s underground art scene. It was also an example of how that DIY scene had flourished enough to go global by way of several Turner Prize winners as well as Franz Ferdinand themselves. Back then, Transmission’s King Street home was one of a cluster of artist led spaces occupying rough and ready premises on and around Trongate in the Merchant City. As is the way with areas that become a home for artists, cheap rents had attracted a natural influx of artistic activity that worked from the ground up in a self-made cultural village – please, let’s not call it a hub. In September 2009, following around £8 million worth of long-term public investment, what had originally been a series of three six storey B listed former Edwardian warehouses opened as Trongate 103. This took the idea ...
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.