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HICA (the Highland Institute for Contemporary Art) is an artist-run
space, located near Inverness in the North of Scotland.
The
gallery occupies part of a farm building situated in hills close to Loch
Ness and exhibits contemporary art of an international standard. Its
relatively remote setting provides a very particular context for
exhibitions.
HICA, as an experimental art-space, also
aims to re-examine the term Concrete Art.
Concrete Art initially
developed in the early 20th Century as an understanding of
non-representational artworks through their physical presence and
properties rather than symbolic or other content. HICA wishes to consider
the origins of Concrete Art and its later developments, to gain a clearer
contemporary sense of it and reflect on the implications the term has for
the understanding of any and all works of art: exploring meaning as the actual
present materials and their relation to, their placing within, their
context.
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HICA considers the
‘context’ to also include the wider context, looking beyond the immediate
gallery setting for other, more fundamental or extraneous input into the
particular dialogue: the interactions between the art-activity and the
wider world.
Exhibitions at HICA
are presented as a programme of contemporary art and the works
shown, in-themselves, may be more or less related to ideas of Concrete Art.
In being shown at HICA though, they may also be viewed through the filter of the
gallery’s Concrete concerns.
An annual publication documents each yearly series of shows, with
accompanying essays. These essays reflect on the exhibitions and build on
earlier discussion and inquiry into the nature of the Concrete. Please see
the publication and individual exhibition pages on this site for further
details. |
