Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

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GoMA's façade on Queen Street

Statue of the Duke of Wellington with traffic cone

The Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) is the City of Glasgow's main gallery of contemporary art.

GoMA is the second most visited contemporary art gallery in the United Kingdom outside London, offering a thought-provoking programme of temporary exhibitions and workshops. GoMA displays work by local and international artists as well as addressing contemporary social issues through its major biannual projects.

Opened in 1996, the Gallery of Modern Art is housed in an elegant, neo-classical building in Royal Exchange Square in the heart of Glasgow city centre. Built in 1778 as the townhouse of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a wealthy Glasgow Tobacco Lord, this building has undergone a series of different uses. It was bought in 1817 by the Royal Bank of Scotland who later moved onto Buchanan Street; it then became the Royal Exchange. Reconstruction for this use was undertaken by David Hamilton between 1827 and 1832 and resulted in many additions to the building, namely the Corinthian pillars to the Queen Street facade, the cupola above and the large hall to the rear of the old house.

In 1954, Glasgow District Libraries moved the Stirling's Library into the building. When library returned to Miller Street, the building was refurbished to house the city’s contemporary art collection.

Currently having enthralled and inspired several million visitors over seven years, the Gallery continues to evolve, developing existing and attracting new audiences. It has a dedicated Education and Access studio, facilitating workshops and artists talks for all ages and in the basement is the Learning Library. Complete with its café, free Internet access terminals, multimedia, art, and general book-lending facilities, the Library complements the contemporary visual art focus of the Gallery. Exhibits include works by David Hockney, Sebastiao Salgado and Andy Warhol as well as Scottish artists such as John Bellany and Ken Currie.

Outside the Gallery stands an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington which permanently has a traffic cone on its head. For many years the authorities regularly removed cones, only for them to be replaced (often the following night) by someone climbing the nearly 20 foot statue. The jauntily placed cone has come to represent, particularly in tourist guidebooks, the city's light-hearted attitude to authority, and the city authorities no longer remove Wellington's cone hat. One exception was on the occasion of Glasgow hosting the 2002 UEFA Champions League final, when the cone was replaced by a football-patterned hat bearing the logo of one of the tournament sponsors, Amstel.

The GoMA was also, for a while, a popular hangout for the Glasgow "Alternative" or Goth youth scene. Youngsters would generally huddle around its front doors, sitting on the stairs in front, where they were often asked to move on by Strathclyde Police. Today, most of the alternative crowd now meet behind the Gallery, at "Borders' Steps", the rear entrance to Borders Books and Music on Buchanan Street, as well as Glasgow Central station.