The main event: Degree shows

Over the years I've changed my mind frequently about the degree shows. At times I've felt myself cringing for the students, exhausted from the process of their final assessments and then expected to sit smiling as hundreds of strangers troop through their studios: the speculators on the lookout, the proud mums, the cynical hacks like me guessing which influential teacher or which artist was number one in this year's imitation stakes.

The fantasy, fostered in the 1980s, that a Saatchi might sweep through the room and change your life forever always seemed straight out of a Martin Amis novel; the idea of "talent spotting" a kind of vanity on the part of an audience.

But degree shows matter hugely for students and storming through the corridors of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee this past week, I found myself getting unreasonably excited again: all these young people, all these ideas, all these possibilities.

If there was a hierarchy in the degree shows, it's rapidly disappearing. Dundee was once a great place to train, and then get the train out of.

This week I lost count of the bright and brilliant students who were applying for studios and staying on in the city, "because there is so much going on".

The strength of Dundee Contemporary Arts and the inspiration of artist organisations like Generator have had a knock-on effect right up the east coast to Aberdeen where organisations such as Peacock and Deveron Arts in Huntly offer young artists incentives to work and stay.

Once-staid Edinburgh has been absolutely transformed over the past decade, by teachers like the critic Neil Mulholland; these days it's a place where irreverence and self-organisation has flourished.

Glasgow, the kingpin among degree shows, always fosters slick-looking students, and opening night is one of the best and most sociable events of the cultural year, but it's really in the years after art school in Glasgow's artist-led culture that the city's undeniable magic comes into its own.

Glasgow's post-graduate show, the MFA, fosters mature art-making and independence of spirit. Alongside work at the CCA, a new venue, Maryhill's Glue Factory, promises to revive the warehouse aesthetic that defined the spirited art-making of the last recession.

When it comes to art-making, I've learned to watch the tortoise as much as be dazzled by the hare, but in Dundee there are evident strengths. Sadie Smith's colourful knitwear takes the casual wear aesthetic to the max, modelled as it is by cardboard cutouts of 1970s footballers.

There is brilliant, brooding animation, drawing on German expressionist film and Czech surrealism, by Mary Somerville, and a tentative, but thoughtful, sculpture show by Hayley Mathers. In Glasgow, expect pyramids: a wooden pair by sculptor Naomi Bell at the art school and a giant one made of spacedust by Solveig Einarsdottir at the MFA show.

Edinburgh textile student Charlotte Helyar has been working in 3D prints, her research and the 3D glasses supported by fashion company Red or Dead.

But it's not just that Scotland's got talent: the real reason that you should attend the degree shows over the coming weeks is to reaffirm your faith in humanity. As we contemplate dramatic changes in political and economic futures the fact that there are hundreds of young artists out there with flair, intelligence, guts, humour and frequently sheer cheek is endlessly reassuring.

Whether they are engaging in outraged political protest, like Dundee's James Lee, who is diligently pulping mortgage forms and RBS credit card applications, or exercising the insane patience and attention to detail exercised by his colleague Alyson Kaliska, who has constructed an entire spaceship out of cardboard and tinfoil, remember they are doing it so you don't have to.

So do go this year, revel in all that unbridled energy and ambition, whether it's art for art sake or a clever product design. Buy something if you can; it's a down payment on a student's first proper studio or more likely their next grocery bill at Lidl.

When you go home, even if it's just to slump in front of the telly, worry about the mortgage or feed the cat, you'll feel much better about the world.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, today until 4pm; Glasgow School of Art, 12-19 June; Glasgow MFA, CCA, Glasgow and the Glue Factory, 15 Burns Street, 12-26 June. Edinburgh College of Art, 12-20 June; Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, 19-26 June

This article was first published in The Scotland On Sunday, May 30, 2010