Let’s just say it: Glasgow has the most vibrant visual art scene in the UK. Whether you look to the Beck’s Futures prize, won by Glasgow-based artists three times in the award’s four-year history, or the Venice Biennale where, in 2003, the first-ever Scottish pavilion presented three Glasgow artists, it clearly has found its place as a hub on the in­ter­n­a­tion­al art scene.

Take a closer look, and most of these globally acclaimed talents don’t just share a home town, they share a gallery: The Modern Institute. So, how did a gallery founded on a shoes­tring just eight years ago end up re­p­res­ent­ing the cream of young Scottish artists? Toby Webster, who co-founded the gallery with writer and curator Will Bradley, almost seems surprised himself.

“When Will and I put the company together in 1996, it was all very casual,” the 35-year-old explains. “We had this idea to set something up that would take shape as it was running; a place where we could be flexible and take on all kinds of different projects, something for everybody. We almost forget that now that we have become quite the formal, pro­fes­sion­al gallery.”

Such a project might have floun­der­ed elsewhere. In Glasgow, a city with no con­tem­por­ary art market, The Modern Institute filled a gap.

“We really just saw the op­por­tun­ity and went for it,” Webster recalls. “We were very lucky in that we were very in touch with what was going on, and so we began with strong artists who were already working, people like Richard Wright or Martin Boyce.”

Luck might have been a part of it, but Webster, and the artists he re­p­res­ents, cite the city itself as key. “In Glasgow, it’s always been about something going on in a friend’s studio space, or the spare room in their flat,” says Beck’s award-winner Toby Paterson, “It’s important to remember that The Modern Institute isn’t a com­mer­ci­al gallery in the New York sense, or the London sense. It grew or­gan­ic­ally out of that Glasgow scene.”

Martin Boyce – who draws on modernist design history to create sculp­tur­al in­stal­l­a­tions – makes the same point, “The Modern Institute has more to offer than other galleries – a whole network of support. My studio is in the same building, and people are always dropping in. It’s an extension of what’s going on in the city.”

The art scene in Glasgow is unique; it fosters cre­at­iv­ity across genres, with artists working freely, un­h­inder­ed by the pressures placed on them in com­par­able cities with a strong re­pu­ta­tion for visual art. “Artists here are allowed to get on with their work,” Webster explains, “There are a lot of con­nec­tions here, too. Every other artist we work with is in a band.”

If there is a downside to these close ties, it is the widely held im­pres­sion that the Institute re­p­res­ents artists with a common aesthetic. Webster has little time for those who seek to pigeon-hole the artists on his books. “I don’t see it,” he says, ex­as­per­ated. “Our artists are in­di­vi­du­al, and very different. One thing you might find in common is that we’re in­ter­es­ted in work that has an edge to it, that has substance. That is what The Modern Institute is about. We’re talking about major artists here, who push at the edges of art and have strong ideas that they follow through with complete con­fid­ence. You don’t do that within some framework.”

The Modern Institute’s success, he adds, rests on adding elbow grease to the in­spir­a­tion Glasgow offers. “We have a good team at the moment, and we really need it. It’s an expensive, difficult business looking after art and shipping it around the world.” A core staff of Webster, and project co-ordinator Claire Jackson, plus a number of part-timers, including Caroline Kirsop, look after over 20 artists.

The Institute adds to the burden of day-to-day logistics by retaining an un­con­ven­tion­al edge. Their gallery space follows an artistic agenda, with solo shows of new work, rather than arranging curated group shows as a honey-trap for col­lect­ors, and much time is devoted to outside projects and in­ter­n­a­tion­al shows.

Now, rather than rest on its laurels, the Institute is set to expand. “The one thing that’s missing,” Webster admits, “is a chance to really open ourselves up to the public. I want to open a second space, then we can help young artists, who we aren’t working with, to show their work in Glasgow.”

The Modern Institute, then, is as ambitious a project in 2004 as it was in 1996 and, again, the focus is firmly on Glasgow, the city that made the project possible.

Sidebar: Four To Watch

Hayley Tompkins

Con­t­inu­ing the tradition of Scottish artists being well re­p­res­en­ted at the Beck’s Futures award, Tompkins is short­l­is­ted this year, and will discover whether she has won the £20,000 prize on April 27. Known for her tiny abstract wa­ter­co­l­ours, finespun wall drawings and frail wooden con­struc­tions, the 32-year-old squeezes a lot into her small-scale works. Detail is ever­yth­ing with portraits reduced to a single beauty spot, and whole movements in art history re­f­er­enced in a slim sliver of paint. Slight at first glance, this is work that places the onus on the viewer to complete the picture, and is as difficult and complex as it is delicate.

EmergeD

The EmergeD col­lect­ive was founded in Glasgow by Lucy Gibson, 25, and Amy Sales, 26, to promote young artists, with a focus on site-specific, public work. One ongoing project has been a hit with gallery-goers and the wider public alike, showing a new artist each week in the window of a disused shop at 18 Woodlands Road. Now with projects underway in Leeds, England and Perth, Australia, EmergeD are an in­ter­n­a­tion­al concern with a virtual base at their website, www.emerged.net.

Sorcha Dallas

As co-curator of Switch­space, an or­gan­isa­tion that has made temporary ex­hib­i­tion spaces out of vacant buildings around Glasgow, Sorcha Dallas has been in the thick of the city’s scene since the late Nineties and has just launched a new eponymous com­mer­ci­al gallery for con­tem­por­ary art. It opened yesterday, at 5 St Margaret’s Place, with the drawings and sculpture of Glasgow School of Art alumnus Alex Frost. The 29-year-old’s inaugural programme looks set to make the most of her solid con­nec­tions in the city, with the focus firmly on the next gen­er­a­tion of homegrown artists.

Tony Swain

As a painter, Swain made waves with his recent outing at Tran­s­mis­sion, the artist-run space that champions new work in the city and across Europe. Using collaged newsprint as his canvas, Swain paints imagined ar­chi­tec­tur­al forms and geometric ab­strac­tions on to the daily news with a deft, ac­com­pl­ished touch. A member of in­ter­n­a­tion­al art-rock quartet Hassle­hound, who have released records on the hip Pickled Egg imprint, Swain recently started working with The Modern Institute.