Advocates, politicians, and artists are stepping up their opposition to the planned sale of Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) building and archive, warning that the loss would be deeply damaging to Scotland’s cultural history.
The CCA shut permanently in January after financial difficulties, leaving the future of both its Sauchiehall Street headquarters and its archival holdings uncertain. The building once housed the Third Eye Centre, founded in 1974 by Scottish playwright Tom McGrath, and welcomed artists including actor Whoopi Goldberg, poet Allen Ginsberg, and painters Steven Campbell and Ken Currie. After the Third Eye Centre closed in 1991, the CCA took its place, recovering archival records that had previously been inaccessible to researchers and later presenting exhibitions and programs by artists such as Janine Antoni, who staged her first solo show there.
The CCA archives were recently listed as an asset by the advisory firm MB (Middleton Barton) Valuation as part of liquidation proceedings. The potential sale includes papers, films, photographs, brochures, and other publications, along with similar material from the Third Eye Centre. Together, the two defunct institutions’ archives cover more than 50 years of Scotland’s cultural history and contemporary art scene, and critics say breaking up the collection could remove it from public access.
Creative Scotland, the Scottish Government agency that owns the Sauchiehall Street site, said last month that it intends to sell or lease the building. In a July 23 statement, it said it would work with Scottish archive groups, Glasgow Life and the Ballast Trust to ensure the archives remain
