Glasgow International Draws Attention with Controversial Works

GLASGOW—The Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art is drawing attention for this edition's curatorial selections. The biennial event, which runs April 11-27, commissioned a work inspired by the murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk, whose body was discovered underneath a Glasgow church in 2006, reports the BBC. The work, which Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal describes as an elegy for Kluk, features the female singer of a punk band performing a song about Kluk naked. Festival director Francis McKee said the short film "represents the vulnerability of Angelika Kluk as a young immigrant finding herself in a predatory situation."

The festival has also drawn attention for rejecting Adel Abdessemed's Don't Trust Me, a video withdrawn from a gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute last week amid protests from animal rights activists. The work shows animals being slaughtered with sledgehammers, which the artist and other supporters argue is a routine procedure in Mexico.

"It's not meant to be sensational," said McKee. "If it's taken out of context then it's very easy to make it sound as if it is, whereas he's actually documenting something and trying to talk about very deep issues."

 

Glasgow International will show other work by Abdessemed.