The End of Art is Peace

Living and working in Glasgow, Graham Fagen (born 1966) continues to be one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. Working across mediums including video, installation, sculpture, photography, and text, Fagen creates works which explore history and culture. He is interested in how history and culture is created and how in turn this shapes and forms who we are or who we become.

Common themes of his work have included Scotland and the transatlantic slave trade, war, plants, journeys, poetry, and popular song, as a means through which to explore the varying forces impacting our contemporary culture and identity.

“The End of Art is Peace is a line from The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney. It’s a line I’ve pondered for a long time and perhaps the location of our exhibition, in the country where Seamus was born, has brought it back into my thoughts.

I [have] talked about my personal conflict when making works of art about war or the transatlantic slave trade. If the end of art is peace does that suggest that the start or the process of art can be conflicting?”

G Fagen

The exhibition The End of Art is Peace features ‘The Slave’s Lament’ video installation, which premiered at Scotland + Venice 2015, when Fagen represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale, and ‘War/Garden (after Tubby)’ which has previously been shown with Golden Thread Gallery at the London Art Fair 2017 as part of our Radio Relay Project.

Bio

Graham Fagen studied sculpture at The Glasgow School of Art (1984-1988, BA (Hons)) and Art & Architecture at the Kent Institute of Art and Design (1989-1990, MA). He is Professor of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee.

In the UK he is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London and he has exhibited at institutions including Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Britain and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. In 1999 he was invited by the Imperial War Museum, London to work as the Official War Artist for Kosovo.

Internationally he has exhibited at the Busan Biennale, South Korea and the Art and Industry Biennial, New Zealand and was international artist in residence at Artpace, San Antonio, USA. In 2015, he represented Scotland at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Private collections in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, New York, San Antonio, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark & Italy.

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