The Modern Institute

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The Modern Institute The Modern Institute is a contemporary visual art gallery founded in Glasgow in 1997.

Dike Blair
Dirk Bell
Martin Boyce
Julia Chiang
Jeremy Deller
Alex Dordoy
Duggie Fields
Urs Fischer
Kim Fisher
Luke Fowler
Martino Gamper
Marco Giordano
Henrik Håkansson
Mark Handforth
Thomas Houseago
Richard Hughes
William E. Jones
Chris Johanson
Andrew Kerr
Liz Larner
Jim Lambie
Victoria Morton
Scott Myles
Nicolas Party
Toby Paterson
Simon Periton
Manfred Pernice
Walter Price
Mary Redmond
Eva Rothschild
Monika Sosnowska
Simon Starling
Katja Strunz
Tony Swain
Spencer Sweeney
Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan
Pádraig Timoney
Sue Tompkins
Hayley Tompkins
Cathy Wilkes
Michael Wilkinson
Richard Wright
Gregor Wright

Michael Wilkinson's 'fluorochiaroscuro' is now on view at P.P.O.W P·P·O·W, New York, at 392 Broadway.Known for his conce...
22/09/2026

Michael Wilkinson's 'fluorochiaroscuro' is now on view at P.P.O.W P·P·O·W, New York, at 392 Broadway.

Known for his conceptual approach to artmaking and installation, this latest series of works develops Wilkinson's concern with still life painting. Combining the optical illusionism of trompe l’oeil with non-representational interventions associated with the readymade, Wilkinson renders ordinary subject matter stunningly enigmatic. Updating the still life genre for our contemporary age, Wilkinson explores its innate ties to ephemerality with a self-awareness that is at once playfully ambivalent and earnestly serious.

Pictured:


Still life with mirror, Irises, 2026,
Acrylic on board, etched mirror
28 x 23 5/8 ins

Liz Larner 'A hard line to bend' is now on view at Camden Art Centre.The exhibition brings together works primarily from...
22/09/2026

Liz Larner 'A hard line to bend' is now on view at Camden Art Centre.

The exhibition brings together works primarily from the last decade and foregrounds the artist’s current ecological concerns and her continued radical experiments in material and form. Unfolding as a series of rooms, the show traces ideas of transformation: from ancient myth and cosmology to the cycles of matter. Informed by post-human and eco-feminist thought, the works reflect on how we are embodied within and intervene in the material world around us.

Wishing Yuichi Hirako a Happy Birthday!Hirako’s work asks for a reconsideration of our relationship to nature and offers...
21/09/2026

Wishing Yuichi Hirako a Happy Birthday!

Hirako’s work asks for a reconsideration of our relationship to nature and offers a subtle allegory for current global environmental issues, expressed in his joyful aesthetic language. A questioning of our awareness of the greenery around us formed the impetus for recent works: the shapes of leaves on houseplants; the plantings, arrangement of flower beds and topiary in local parks; the attractive but unsettlingly wild masses of tree species that constitute a forest. Hirako asks us to look at situations where nature enters our world, disguised and interspersed with human creations and technologies.

Yuichi Hirako's exhibition "HUMAN AND NATURE" opened on September 5, 2026, as the first program marking the opening of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Hall and will run until the 18th October.

Images:
Yuichi Hirako, 'HUMAN AND NATURE', Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Hall, Toyko, 2026

Martin Boyce, Hang Up the Day Put on The Night, opening tonight at The Modern Institute's Aird's Lane gallery, 6–8pm!Mar...
17/09/2026

Martin Boyce, Hang Up the Day Put on The Night, opening tonight at The Modern Institute's Aird's Lane gallery, 6–8pm!

Martin Boyce’s exhibition title is an invitation, one which casts the galleries as a liminal interior, a place both eerie and incomplete. It also points to a movement from interior to exterior, one concurrent with a change from natural to manmade. Boyce produces a simultaneity of conditions, somewhere between home, stage and landscape. Each artwork has a double-life, nodding to elements in the environment and industrial design, to the real and fictional: a sculpture registers as a coat stand and an orrery; steel chain resembles the branches of a tree; glass lanterns are cherry blossom; a fireplace becomes a theatre.

Medusozoa Blossom, 2026, a skeletal chandelier, holds a central place in the installation; the Medusozoa of the title referring to categories of jellyfish.

Images:

(1) Installation view 'Hang Up the Day Put on The Night', The Modern Institute, Aird's Lane, 2026 (2-3) Martin Boyce, Medusozoa Blossom, 2026, Galvanised steel, galvanised chain, hand blown glass, electrical components, 190 x 100 x 100 cm

Andrew Kerr Capture Builthis opening tonight at The Modern Institute's Osborne Street gallery, 6–8pm!Andrew Kerr’s pract...
17/09/2026

Andrew Kerr Capture Builthis opening tonight at The Modern Institute's Osborne Street gallery, 6–8pm!

Andrew Kerr’s practice is rooted in drawing. His pencil drawings, exploring letterforms, text and shape, provide both pictorial ideas and a technique which move into painting. This intuitive method, one which relies on following an unfolding process rather than a strict logic, extends into Kerr’s investigations of sculpture and architecture too. Shapes chime between the dancing vessels, column-like emblems, and pleated spaces in the paintings and the interventions in the space.

Images:

(1-2) , Untitled, 2026, Acrylic on paper mounted on card, 37.5 x 55.2 x 3.4 cm (3) Installation view 'Capture Builthis', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, 2026

Monika Sosnowska 'Weight of Matter' is now on view at South London Gallery.Sosnowska’s work reflects on the implosion of...
13/09/2026

Monika Sosnowska 'Weight of Matter' is now on view at South London Gallery.

Sosnowska’s work reflects on the implosion of the communist regime in Poland and the legacy of modernism, with a particular focus on the impact that architecture and space have on people.

'Architecture serves to organise and give order. Socio-political systems are reflected in it. My works are about introducing chaos and uncertainty. They make reality cease to be obvious.' – Monika Sosnowska

At the SLG, a site-specific installation at the Main Gallery showcases a group of large-scale hanging sculptures, some of which weigh over half a tonne. Suspended from the rafters like carcasses, or remnants of architectural and broader histories, the individual works merge into an intertwined and sometimes incomprehensible mass.

We are pleased to announce Capture Builthis, a new solo show by Andrew Kerr. Opening at The Modern Institute's Osborne S...
12/09/2026

We are pleased to announce Capture Builthis, a new solo show by Andrew Kerr. Opening at The Modern Institute's Osborne Street gallery on Thursday 17 September, 6–8pm.

We are delighted to announce Hang Up the Day Put On the Night, a new solo exhibition by Martin Boyce , opening at our Ai...
11/09/2026

We are delighted to announce Hang Up the Day Put On the Night, a new solo exhibition by Martin Boyce , opening at our Aird's Lane gallery on Thursday 17 September, 6–8pm.

The exhibition will be on view from 18 September – 31 October 2026.

Pictured:


Days of End, 2026
Brass, powder coated steel, wire
110 x 15 x 5.5 cm

Kim Bohie Bohie Kim/김보희 TOWARDS: There Was Light is on view at Gallery Hyundai Gallery Hyundai, Seoul.“That a still ...
08/09/2026

Kim Bohie Bohie Kim/김보희 TOWARDS: There Was Light is on view at Gallery Hyundai Gallery Hyundai, Seoul.

“That a still surface can hold yesterday, today, tomorrow at once; that here, there, and elsewhere can meet in the same moment; that different times and spaces can unfold together on a single, fixed plane—it still fills me with wonder.” — Kim Bohie, July 2026

The exhibition title TOWARDS: There Was Light alludes to the moment of creation when light first emerges from darkness and the world begins to take form. It resonates with Kim’s lifelong gratitude and reverence for nature, while extending beyond spiritual symbolism to describe a fundamental condition of her painting: light enables her to perceive change and time in the natural world and to translate those perceptions into pictorial form. Just as light allows the colours and forms of the world to become visible, Kim’s paintings begin with sustained attention to nature as it changes from one moment to the next.

In this sense, “There Was Light” refers not only to the light by which the world becomes visible, but also metaphorically to that which summons the artist’s lived and remembered experience into the present tense of painting, drawing disparate times and spaces into a single pictorial landscape.

Pictured:


Towards, 2026
Colour on canvas
162.2 x 130.3 cm

'First day back in the studio for the force of nature that is Tony Swain. He came through the fire of an extensive, trau...
08/09/2026

'First day back in the studio for the force of nature that is Tony Swain. He came through the fire of an extensive, traumatic brain injury, life-saving neuro surgery, 3 months in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow; learned how to talk and walk again. His unparalleled and inimitable painting abilities somehow remain, as does his dexterity on the guitar. This is a testament to NHS Scotland, the world-class QEUH Neurological Institute, NRU Art in Hospital and living proof of how the power of art and music build a resilient brain. Thank you to all the brilliant doctors, nurses, physios, therapists, family and friends who helped bring him back. We'll have a big celebration at his solo exhibition The Modern Institute in November. Photos by great friend and artist, the lovely Raydale Dower' – Karla Black

We couldn't be happier to see Tony back in good health and in the studio following a difficult year. We're also delighted to announce that he will open a solo show at The Modern Institute, Osborne Street this November. Hope to see you all there!

Images:

(1-2) Tony Swain in the studio, 2026 (3) Tony Swain, Blatant Ghost, 2025, Acrylic and pieced newspaper on board, 166 x 114 cm (4) Tony Swain, Nobody Ahead, 2022 (detail), Acrylic on pieced newspaper, 80.5 x 88 cm (5) Tony Swain, Three Quarters of Now, 2023, Acrylic on pieced newspaper, 65 x 65 cm (6) Tony Swain, A cure, a sea, 2023, Acrylic and pieced newspaper on board, 155 x 167.3 x 3.2 cm (7) Tony Swain, Untitled, 2022 (detail), Acrylic on pieced newspaper, 63.5 x 83.3 cm (8) Tony Swain, Vigilance in Store, 2023, Acrylic on pieced newspaper, 35 x 65 cm (9) Tony Swain, Page, not one gap, 2022, Acrylic, pieced newspaper, honeycomb cardboard packaging on board, 233 x 170.3 x 3.5 cm (10) Tony Swain, Acres Centred, 2022 (detail), Acrylic and pieced newspaper on board, 155.2 x 243.3 x 3.5 cm

Address

14-20 Osborne Street
Glasgow
G15QN

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturday 12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+441412483711

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