Cameron Rowland and the Politics of Obstruction

Ramshorn Cemetery in the Merchant City area of Glasgow is enclosed by a royal blue Victorian gothic gate with pointed finials adorned with acanthus leaves. A sizeable silver chain is locked around two of its central trefoils, obstructing the entryway. Peering through its pickets, I notice the words ‘[Late] Merchant [in] Glasgow’ engraved in austere stones, flatly embedded horizontally in the grass and vertically on walls. From the early 18th century to the early 20th century, Ramshorn was an upscale burial ground for Glasgow’s merchant class, which emerged when the city monopolized imports of tobacco and sugar – particularly from plantations in Jamaica, Maryland and Virginia – following the 1707 Acts of Union. From goods produced by the enslaved, merchants such as Andrew Buchanan and John Glassford acquired the wealth that bought them plots at Ramshorn and expanded Glasgow westwards with mansions, townhouses and profitable infrastructure, including the streets that still commemorate their names.

Known for exhuming the latent systemic racism in our everyday lives, artist Cameron Rowland padlocked Ramshorn’s gates for the duration of this year’s Glasgow International. The ‘unauthorized closure’, declares the accompanying short text, ‘is a [B]lack antagonism of this “heritage”.’ Glasgow City Council, lobbied by Merchant City Community Council, has funded Ramshorn Cemetery for locals and tourists alike. Rowland’s work, however, prevents any reverence of these monuments to a wealth accumulated from the city’s involvement in the slave trade.

The intent of Obstruction (2024) is partially predicated on the continued veneration of these individuals. Observing the cemetery, I note that nature has started to reclaim the merchants’ graves: weeds and grass fold the eroded stones in their tendrils, while wrappers for condoms and needles lie scattered nearby. Still, in their larger plots, isolated and elevated by iron gates, the richest merchants endure. Their lasting legacies raise questions: who has the resources and status to be commemorated? Inversely, who is excluded from history and memory? I think of the unmarked and unprotected burial sites of the Black slaves, whose imposed objecthood materialized Ramshorn. The dispossession of the enslaved is the condition of the merchant’s possession. 

The cemetery’s main entrance remains locked regardless of whether prospective visitors are aware of the artist’s rationale or not

Across Rowland’s exhibitions – including ‘91020000’ at Artists Space, New York, in 2016 and his eponymous show at Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, in 2023 – there are critiques of capitalist accumulation, circulation and production, particularly of property as economically and legally constructed vis-à-vis the Atlantic slave trade in Europe and the US. Conceptual art has challenged the commercialized art world from its earliest days. Take Robert Barry’s Closed Gallery (1969), which saw the artist close the Eugenia Butler Gallery in Los Angeles for the show’s duration. While such works initially raised the question of whether dematerialized art – compared to traditional paintings and sculptures – could be commodified, dealers have subsequently monetized its documentation. More recently, artists like Maria Eichhorn have further inverted the logic of institutions via cessation. Eichhorn’s 2016 exhibition ‘5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours’ at Chisenhale Gallery, London, included a piece that subverted the logic upon which wages are based: the artist shuttered the gallery while its staff continued to receive payment for withdrawing their labour or, rather, for their free time. Rowland’s works, inside and outside galleries, have thwarted the distribution of objects made from privatized, underpaid prison labour (Attica Series Desk, 2016) and depreciated the financial or functional value of land, such as at Ramshorn Cemetery.

Appreciation of the effects of such conceptual interventions can require knowledge of the work’s written or spoken discourse. The materialized focus – the closed gallery or the locked gate – is not autonomous. Eichhorn decorated Chisenhale Gallery’s front gate with an abridgement of her concept as well as a URL to a larger explanation and publication. A seminar on the work’s themes also preceded the closure. Rowland’s explanatory text directing the audience’s contemplation of Ramshorn’s obstruction appears on Glasgow International’s website and in its programme guide. Since the text is inaccessible to passersby, however, Obstruction’s conceptual reach is potentially limited. Nonetheless, the cemetery’s main entrance remains locked regardless of whether prospective visitors are aware of the artist’s rationale or not.

For those familiar with Rowland’s intent and broader artistic project, his glimmering lock provokes profound reflection; for those unfamiliar with his practice, his intervention might simply disrupt their daily lives. Obstruction is more open-ended than Rowland’s previous works, particularly his readymades. It draws attention to the nearby Glasgow Police Museum, the large LED army recruitment ad and the City Council’s logo across its amenities – all of which are accentuated in a dialogue about slavery’s legacy in the city. Though its ghosts cannot be purged, I wonder how a site such as Ramshorn can defy its inherently sanctifying nature once – if – the Community and City Councils cut Cameron’s bolt.

^{Main image: Ingram Street, Ramshorn Cemetery’s boundary railings. Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons}