Art review: Glasgow International - Director’s Programme

Spring is in the air in Glasgow. At long last, there are signs of the weather improving, and contemporary art exhibitions are popping up everywhere along with the daffodils. Glasgow International, the city’s biennale, is blooming in more than 70 venues, from major museums and galleries to vacant shops and derelict factories. This is the eighth GI and the first for new director Richard Parry, who has curated a network of shows across some of the city’s major spaces. He has said that one of his priorities is to invite artists to address the times in which we live, and he lays out some of his ideas on this in Cellular World: Cyborg-Human-Avatar-Horror (***) in the main ground floor gallery at GoMA. The show features works by nine international artists looking at the ways in which our lives are becoming increasingly intertwined with technology, and how we might envision the future. Interestingly, GI begins just as the Edinburgh International Science Festival closes, with avatars and robotics a major theme there too, but with a generally more positive outlook. Among artists, it seems, the view is much more ambivalent.