Boy in Plastic Pants, Peter Hujar. © The Peter Hujar Archive, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Preview - Collected, featuring new acquisitions at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, showing from December 11 2008
Social justice, everyday life in Palestine and gritty portraits of late-night New York are among the first works of art bought through the Art Fund’s £5 million collecting scheme.
Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), which was one of five UK museums to win £1 million from Art Fund International in order to “develop an outstanding collection of international contemporary Art”, will be unveiling the first of its purchases, seven photographic prints from influential American artist Peter Hujar, on December 11.
Katrina Brown, Director of Glasgow-based visual arts charity The Common Guild, said: “The first few acquisitions in this amazing scheme were always going to be of particular excitement to us and we are truly delighted to be bringing the work of such important, respected and influential artists to Glasgow on a permanent basis."
“These first works will already allow GOMA to show something of the context for the work of our homegrown contemporary artists and the city is truly indebted to The Art Fund for this extraordinary and much-needed possibility.”
Best known for his harrowing image of Warhol collaborator Candy Darling on her deathbed, Hujar’s series exposes an urban, sinister side of 1970s and 1980s New York.
Hujar is best known for his haunting portrait of Candy Darling
Matthew Buckingham’s Everything I Need also features, offering a juxtaposition of words and cinematography exploring the life of an exiled German Jewish lesbian returning to Berlin in the 1970s. The gallery will become the only UK institution outside of London to hold work by German artist Lothar Baumgarten after acquiring Unsettled Objects, an installation piece examining non-western art and artefacts.
Three video works highlighting the restrictions of existence in Palestine by award-winning Saudi Arabian artist Emily Jacir have also been purchased.
Collected, showcasing the work of Peter Hujar and Matthew Buckingham, will open to the public on December 11.
