The Modern Institute

Don't be fooled by appearances. It might look as if you're wandering into an office block uninvited, but have faith that this tenement a couple of streets away from Central Station really is where you'll find one of the most talked about galleries in the city. Ignore the book binders and the design consultants and head up to the first floor where two front rooms have been claimed by the Modern Institute.

 

Inauspicious though the space is, the gallery has been associated with such fashionable names in contemporary art as Richard Wright, Christine Borland, Jim Lambie, Jeremy Deller, Toby Paterson, Claire Barclay, Martin Boyce and Simon Starling. Over the past decade it has made a splash with shows in galleries across Europe and the USA. It has more than one Turner Prize nominee on its books – and winners in Jeremy Deller and Simon Starling – and several who have represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale.

 

When it's not exporting work to London, Munich and Miami, the gallery is mounting monthly exhibitions of young artists from home and abroad. These artists are as likely to be influenced by pop culture as high art and their work is more likely to take over the whole gallery in 3D installations than sit politely in frames upon the wall.

 

Billing themselves as "culturepreneurs", the gallery's management team represents around 30 artists at an international level and has helped put Glasgow on the world art map.