The headline above contains terms not usually associated with positive publicity, but in this case they exactly describe the effects for which Axo Gallery and artists' initiative Coup Red are aiming.
An original 'Happening', We are Gruesome will celebrate all things grotesque in an event combining contemporary art and performance, sound sculpture, and – perhaps most terrifying of all – audience participation.
'Linking gruesome imagery that has become synonymous with Halloween ... can provoke instantaneous, unsettling emotions and an indistinct, shadowy undercurrent of gruesome fact or fiction,' write Coup Red Directors Claire Craig and Catriona Whiteford. '[This imagery] can be narrated by the viewer's imagination, allowing the art to breathe.' Expect gory interventions.
Spectators are invited to come dressed still in their Halloween finery on 1 November to 'embrace all things dark and thematic, spoken and visual'. (Good thing the show lasts three hours.) The exhibition and event will showcase a variety of Scotland's emerging artistic talent including Ashley Nieuwenhuizen, Iain Sommerville, Megan Lindsay, Vanessa Roy, Sarah Green and Sofie Fisher Rasmussen.
Axo Gallery is the sister of Axolotyl Gallery on Dundas Street. It specialises in innovative events, collaborations and exhibitions, and aims to revive the spontaneity, excitement and buzz about art which occurred during the (initially American and gallery-based) Happenings of the late 1950s and early 1960s. You can find out more about it here and here; and about Coup Red here.
Axo is at 59 Queen Charlotte Street ('left at the cherry tree and up the garden path'). We are Gruesome is a free event to which all are welcome (1 November, 6:00–9:00pm). A more conventional free exhibition will follow on 2–4 November, 10:00am–6:00pm.