Dundee’s reputation as a great arts scene superceded my actual visit, but I had barely stepped foot into Dundee for a weekend of art openings when I looked up and along the winding streets on Perth Road and felt compelled to compare Dundee to Winnipeg. I don’t live there either, but Winnipeg is a city I love visiting, mostly because of its art scene. A place of loyal locals ever populated and deflated by emerging, mid career and established artists, Winnipeg is a city creating and trying to sustain a lineage of mentorship, standards, and hope.

It’s a small city comparatively in Canada, sitting at about an 1/5 of the country’s biggest city, and just off to the center of the country. At this time, both cities are looking to develop their waterfront, hoping to rejuvenate a sense of economy and civic interest. Walking through Dundee’s downtown, both cities also share an apparent grit in character, from the smells and sights of decay where heritage and development sit side by side with a pervasive poverty.

With the weekend passed, I’m no longer sure that comparison stands, as the initial commonalities reveal the real differences. Each city is unique, but twin cities, or sister cities as some may call them, share strands that run deep through regional relativity.

On the civic infrastructure side, the foundation of a good art school exist in both cities, and Winnipeg has a fine art programme that year after year churns out graduates that go off and achieve some of the highest successes nationally as well as internationally. Parallel in Dundee is the Duncan of Jordanston College of Art and Design, where graduates include 2010 Turner Prize Winner Susan Philipsz. No aspiring Philipsz were spotted through the gauntlet of families, bouncers, and booze on opening night for the Degree Show 2011 but it was great to see that many of the more notable works were made by young women (considering this recent Guardian article), notably a water-based installation by Holly Keasey and a colour coded lunar moon piano composition by Louise Pearson.

Winnipeg’s arts scene has been put on the map largely due to Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, one of the most important art institutions in Canada in terms of curatorial programming on an international level. Saturday in Dundee was spent almost exclusively in the galleries of The Dundee Contemporary Arts, where the afternoon began with a curators talk by Sophia Hao and David Faithfull and durational administrative performance by Yuck ‘n Yum for Cabin: Codex, a revisiting of DCA’s fantastic library of rare artist books. The display could have been more engaging, as while they encouraged you to touch and read and rearrange these precious art books, there wasn’t much of a sitting area to do so, with seats in poorly lit areas and the general ambiance of a gallery still rather than a reading room.

On the main gallery floor of DCA, before the night’s opening, my eye caught a large colour wheel, reminding me of a flattened parachute or circus tent, and this would lead me into Berlin-based Nina Rhode’s Friendly Fire, possibly the best exhibition I’ve seen in quite sometime, and certainly since I’ve arrived in Scotland. DCA also has a great and busy cafe, keeping people coming and going in the building, along with an art house cinema, which is reason enough to return.

Unfortunately, the time-based work in the other gallery reminded me of why I have no patience for most screen-based art set in galleries, where I simply expect a conscious presentation of the time-based moving images to distinguish itself from a cinematic presentation. However, I hear Carla Tomlie is a fantastic theatrical performer, and she will do so on July 7 at DCA.

Generator, the only artist run center in the city, was also unfortunately forgettable, but a nice annual idea in revisiting recent graduated artists selected from previous Scottish Degree Shows. Of all the emerging artists seen that weekend, Stefan Blomeier appeared to offer something unique unto himself and his interests, through an aesthetic that is recognizable, though may not actually say anything. 

This leads to the perpetual grind for finding artist studios. One of the best treasures of Winnipeg’s art scene is visiting the endless studios in the city’s old factories, which Dundee also has no shortage from its jute and jam days. Stopping in for a seemingly open afternoon yard party at The Tin Roof, a new factory studio space spearheaded by the college and containing about 20 young artists in a 2 storey brick building. I didn’t see much art, but I learned something from what I did not see.

The rain and the wind had the best of that weekend, and walking through the factory space, I do wonder if they had just moved in as there were no walls dividing each space. Empty spaces are inspiring through their potential, but studio spaces are inspiring because of their concentrated chaos. I wandered through the open space, with makeshift barriers, and there was no concentration amidst the piles. Most artists I have ever visited with in shared studio spaces put up walls, or at least floor to ceiling curtains, to have some form of privacy and concentration to work and make work. I remember lending a hand to move a set of studios from one end of Winnipeg to the other, a whole floor of one factory to another, and one of the first things moved were the slabs of drywall and 2 x 4’s. I was slightly shocked to learn that the group at Tin Roof have had the space since December, as while I’m sure a lot has been done to the space, nothing evident resembled a functioning studio space was visible.

While at first glance it appears Dundee’s thriving arts scene is charged with an overwhelming majority of emerging artists, I am left wondering how much of that energy simply dissipates. I did meet a few mid career arts professionals, but they appeared greatly outnumbered by the progeny. I look forward to checking back, and seeing how a city’s reputation grows through its artists and their output.