After researching 182 possible sites, Tramway ultimately made most sense for Scottish Ballet. Psychologically, the gritty nature of Glasgow's old tram depot would neatly fit the profile of a national arts organisation which has just reinvented itself to considerable acclaim as a classically-trained company committed to modern dance. Scottish Ballet and Tramway have something else in common. Both are no strangers to death row; both are painfully aware that in recent years there has been no shortage of would-be executioners. The price which would have to be paid for this marriage of considerable mutual convenience is one which has brought the visual arts community in Glasgow to the barricades. For while Tramway would retain its performance space, it would lose a major gallery in the shape of Tramway 2. This, as its passionate advocates insist, is unique.

Unique in the sense that there is currently no venue of comparable size; a vast arena where both indigenous and international artists need be limited only by their imaginations. It is for this reason many artists and my friends and colleagues on the board of Glasgow School of Art have mounted an orchestrated campaign to try to ensure its survival. GSA, which continues serially to produce some remarkable talents across the field of art and design, is also anxious to preserve the location for its Fine Art degree show.

Piggy in the middle of all of this is Glasgow City Council, which pumps more than half a million pounds every year into Tramway, which put another £300,000 into the visual arts generally, but which manages to find itself characterised as cultural Visigoth by some of the more excitable campaigners. I have no doubt that among the elected members of GCC there are many people who would lose not a moment's sleep if the city diverted its entire cultural budget into five-a-side footy pitches. But equally the recent civic track record in contributing to the remarkable renaissance of contemporary visual art in the city is hardly one to sneer at. When Julian Spalding quit as director of museums and galleries there was more blood than art on the walls. Endless rows over the content of the new Gallery of Modern Art, endless conflict over a purchasing budget which was then solely in the director's gift. Deep dismay, too, over the loss of whole tranches of curatorial and conservatorial expertise. Much has changed in five years. Goma's exhibition strategy has won many plaudits, Kelvingrove is undergoing massive refurbishment, the open museum at Nitshill has been built, the Briggait has been renovated with a view to giving the artists in Wasps and the Glasgow Sculpture Studio a new home, while there are well advanced plans to upgrade the critical mass of smaller galleries in the King Street area.

In that five years, too, the Centre for Contemporary Arts has come back on stream after its major refurbishment, and the Glasgow Art Fair has spawned Raw, Real Art Weekend, its own fringe festival. Meanwhile, Glasgow continues to breed and import some of the brightest young talents. The successes at the Venice Biennale and Becks Futures speak volumes for how the city is now able to punch significantly above its visual-arts weight.

Campaigners for Tramway 2 suggest that if the space is lost, somehow all that creative energy and, indeed, many of the high-profile talents will melt away. Yet at its core, creativity is about people and ideas, not just spaces. Can we truly believe this new surge of energy all around us is such a fragile flower that it can only grow in one piece of site-specific soil? The campaign literature questions the logic of losing one cultural asset in order to create another. Rightly so. But we live in a country which still massively undervalues its arts and continues to grudge them adequate resources. The fallout from this parsimony too often pits one cultural imperative against another. So in this debate, as in so many others, all we can do is set the gains against the losses and make a judgment. Central to the problem is not just the current status of Tramway, but its likely future. Tramway 2 had five major and five smaller-scale exhibitions over the past year. The total attendance including the invited previews was just more than 11,000.

Obviously, it's not just a numbers game. As the outgoing chair of CCA, I well know the vital importance of giving people time and space to develop and experiment; offering a laboratory as well as a showcase.

But the stark fact is that Tramway as a whole suffers from underuse, and allied to the increasingly pressing need to find a solution to the still-crumbling part of the building it means that its medium and long-term funding in its present guise is far from secure. So what is at stake here is not just Tramway 2, but Tramway 1, the performance space which first attracted Peter Brook and Robert Le Page and has more recently played host to projects by the Wooster Group and Theatre Cryptic.

That was what originally put the venue on the international map. What's at stake, too, is the wide range of community and education initiatives which would increase with the proposed rebuild. It's also worth noting that if the Scottish Ballet proposition is successful, the city council will guarantee that the £88,000 visual arts budget and the curatorial post will remain.

This week one young artist felt moved to tell the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow that because of the threat to Tramway 2 she no longer wished her work bought by them. Even higher-profile consciences are, I gather, likely to be the subject of public parades in the coming days. I cannot for the life of me work out just how telling the council where to stick its purchase fund is a route to a healthier climate for the visual arts. A rather more rational next move would be a meeting of all interested parties to ventilate the issues, and fully explore the options.

There's nothing Scottish arts like more than a rammy, and there's nothing less likely than a rammy to unify the cultural community in its pursuit of a wholly healthy Glasgow arts scene.

original article : http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/1949.html