Co-commissioned by Artangel and Glasgow international Festival of Contemporary Visual Art 2008 and produced by Artangel.

Ninety metres above the ground, a thin metal wire stretches between three of the tower blocks in Red Road, North Glasgow.  A solitary figure steps off the edge of the building and onto the line before him. He moves slowly and gracefully, step by silent step, and along the wire. 

A multi-screen film and video installation receiving its première at the CCA for Glasgow international 2008 HIGH WIRE continues Catherine Yass’ interest in vertiginous spaces: architecture, height and scale have been dominant formal themes in her previous work. 

The installation draws on Yass' filmed footage of Didier Pasquette taken at Red Road in Glasgow in 2007, and is as much concerned with the isolated physical space inhabited by the walker — in a landscape dominated by the brutalism of the tower blocks — as with his remarkable mental and physical transformation during the course of the attempted walk.

HIGH WIRE brings together personal dreams of walking in the air with modernist dreams of a utopian ideal.  The exhibition also includes a new series of Yass’ lightboxes evolved from the project at Red Road. 

ABOUT CATHERINE YASS
Catherine Yass is one of the most innovative artists working with film and photography today. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002 and has recently exhibited her work in the USA, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan.  Her short films generate startling new perspectives on the urban environment, capturing familiar sights from highly unusual vantage points. Presented upside down, Descent (2002) was filmed with a camera lowered from a crane through the morning mist from one of the massive construction sites at Canary Wharf in London. Flight (2002) was made from a remote-controlled helicopter circling the BBC Television Centre in London. In her most recent film Lock, Yass filmed the Three Gorges Dam in China. The work is currently on show at Alison Jacques Gallery, London.

ABOUT GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL
Glasgow international is the city’s curated and commissioning Festival of Contemporary Visual Art hosting specially developed exhibitions, seminars, artists’ talks and events.  The Festival aims to provide a platform for the best of contemporary visual arts and artists, including newly commissioned work and work that has not been seen in Glasgow before. The 2008 Festival is curated by Francis McKee and launches the first year of the festival in its new biennial format.

For interviews, further information and images please contact Lesley Booth on 07799 414474 or lesley.booth@newcenturypr.com or Janette Scott at Artangel on 020 7713 1400 or janette@artangel.org.uk