Inspiring malt: Contemporary art comes to Glenfiddich distillery

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 16:50

VISITORS to Glenfiddich distillery smell it before they see it, the warm, malty aroma of Scotch drifting over the Speyside town of Dufftown. So there's no explanation needed for the work of contemporary art which has been floating in the distillery pond for the last two months.

• Glenfiddich distillery

The Connoisseurs, by Glasgow artist Alex Frost, is a collection of large coloured noses, their tips lifted high out of the water as if the sniff the quality of the air. They have proved a talking point with visitors since they were installed in the summer, and a source of some perturbation to the distillery's flock of ducks.

"They definitely had their beaks put out of joint at first," says Andy Fairgrieve, the curator of Glenfiddich's Artists in Residence programme. "They went off to the pond at (neighbouring distillery) Balvenie for a while. They're back now, but they're still suspicious. There is also a lot of speculation around the distillery about who the noses might be modeled on."

Frost is one of the artists who took part in this summer's residency programme, one of the largest and most ambitious in Scotland. Eight artists, handpicked from all over the world are invited to live and work at the distillery for three months, exhibiting their work at an on-site gallery.

"The noses relate to the olefactory experience of walking around here as well as the snootiness of the notion of connoisseurship," says Frost, who wanted to make a work about the notion, which is as relevant in whisky as it is in art.

The refurbished distillery cottage which has been his home for the summer is also full of "blind drawings" which he has made by taking photographs of still life arrangements, turning then into bitmaps digitally, perforating them by hand and painting through the perforations. "Something between hi-tech and needlework," he grins.

The last year has seen Frost shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and his work shown at the Venice Biennale. Next year, he will have a major solo show at DCA. His time at Glenfiddich has been productive, a chance to take time out at a short remove from the demands of the art world.

"You live on top of your work so there's a degree of intensity that isn't always brilliant, but it's been interesting, having space. When I came here I decided to take the oportunity to do something that was a bit beyond the scale I've been working on."

William Grant & Sons, the owners of the Glenfiddich brand, launched the Artists in Residency programme in 2002, as a way of building their art collection. The company invests more than 80,000 a year in the project, which has hosted artists such as Alison Watt, Rosalind Nashashibi, Kenny Hunter, Christine Borland and Ross Sinclair.

Artists are not required to make work about whisky, but they are encouraged to find inspiration in the distillery surroundings, from the flora and fauna to the staff and machinery, from the politics of whisky-making, to the aromas in the air. Every artist gifts one piece of work to the distillery's art collection.

In 2007, the company re-focused the residency on countries which are key markets for whisky: North America, Spain, South Africa, the Far East, and began to forge links through the artists with events and exhibitions in their country of origin. Glenfiddich work has been exhibited in New York and Taipei, and an exchange programme set up with the Banff Arts Centre in Canada.

"The local-global aspect has always been part of the residency," says Fairgrieve. "Glenfiddich is a local company with a global dimension. The residency is focused on being at the distillery, then it develops outwards."

This year, changes in the visa system for artists coming to Britain has posed extra challenges. Two artists - M P Landis from New York and Calcutta-based Anirban Mitra - were unable to obtain visas and were forced to work remotely, supported by Glenfiddich and sending their work to Speyside to be exhibited.

"The project continues to present new challenges, though some are more welcome than others," says Fairgrieve, diplomatically. When one of this year's artists, Royal Academy student Blue Firth, proposed building a drystone wall across the gallery as part of an artwork, he felt it was an appropriate symbol of their struggle.

"We might not morally want a barrier, but given the circumstances this year it's worked out well: a boundary you have to get over to view the work by artists who have to overcome barriers themselves." Visitors climbed over the stile in Firth's wall to see Mitra's colourful textile works fusing Scots and Indian kitsch, and Landis' elegant abstracts made by applying paint to metal hoops from whisky casks.

Canadian Arabella Campbell was relieved when her visa application was successful. "It's been a fantastic experience, the support of the distillery is really amazing, they encourage us to do what we want to do. It's great to have space and time to open your mind. I think all the reading and thinking will coalesce and come together in the months and years to come."

A row of whiskies of different vintages sits in her studio, but Campbell hasn't been drinking them, she's been painting with them. Applying whisky delicately in layers, she has created a range of sepia monochromes using 12-year-old, 15-year-old and 18-year-old Glenfiddich. "I have to open all the windows when I do it," she grins. "The fumes are really intense."

Campbell is also interested in the idea of connoisseurship and collecting and travelled to Denmark to photograph Hans-Henrick Hanson, a whisky enthusiast who has the largest collection of Glenfiddich whiskies in the world, greater even than the distillery's own. Turning the tables, she has now gifted her portrait of him to Glenfiddich's art collection.

The quiet of Dufftown has been something of a shock for artist and film-maker Jun jieh Wang from Taiwan. "I live in Taipei, which is fast, busy, full of pollution, a typical Asian city. Here is completely different for me, but fascinating, beautiful."

Wang makes large-scale multi-media projects which can take two years to complete, and he wondered at first how to use his three months at Glenfiddich. In fact, the environment of the distillery, from the landscapes to the sound of the river and the painted doors of the warehouses, has seamlessly blended in to the idea he was working on, drawn from the life of Marcel Duchamp. Like many of the artists here, he has found space to experiment.

"New media art is always very difficult, if you want to do big projects you need to take a team with you, but you also need to find the budget. The change has been positive for me, I can slow down and think. Here I don't have the equipment and the crew to realise the film, but I can do what I can, I can do it by myself on a smaller scale."

Meanwhile, in the cottage next door, a large oil painting is taking up most of the sitting room. Chinese artist Qi Xing is creating a large portrait of 16th-century North-east outlaw James MacPherson. A local Robin Hood figure, MacPherson was hanged at Banff in 1700, reputedly playing his fiddle on the gallows.

"I liked the story," said the taciturn artist, who wanted to paint a Scottish hero. However, a bolt of Hunting MacPherson tartan ordered for the portrait took longer than expected to arrive, so Qi occupied himself painting rabbits - ubiquitous in the distillery grounds - on the smoking shelter used by the staff. "He started with one rabbit," says Fairgrieve, "then you realise that even in paint rabbits multiply at an amazing rate".

Sociable Dathini Mzayiya from Cape Town has been busy becoming part of the community life of Dufftown. Saying his work is inspired by work environments, communities and gatherings, he has been painting portraits of the staff in Glenfiddich's dedicated cooperage.

He has also made his first animation, after striking a surprising link between Isi Zhosa culture in black South Africa and the customs of whisky nosing and tasting. "When traditional beer is being brewed for an occasion, a group of elderly people all meet to taste it and decide whether or not it is good. I can imagine this character of the taster - the Umngcamli - here in Glenfiddich, I was interested in that comparison."

It was also an experiment which pushed him in a new direction. "It's a learning curve. I'm not scared to challenge myself. Here I have had time to experiment. One of the best things with residency placements is that artists get time to work out ideas - those ideas you really wanted to but never got the chance to make."

For more information on the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence programme, visit www.glenfiddich.co.uk