Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)
Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) is one of the narrated stops on the self-guided Glasgow audio walking tour in Gingerguide. Plan about ~60 min here. Press play at the spot for its two to three minute story, or ask the AI guide anything about it.
- Type museum
- Suggested visit ~60 min
- Glasgow Glasgow guide
About Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)
Glasgow's leading contemporary art gallery in a neoclassical Exchange Square building, eternally presided over by the Duke of Wellington statue famously topped with a traffic cone, the most irreverent civic sculpture in Britain.
The Gallery of Modern Art, known as GoMA, is Glasgow's principal showcase for contemporary and modern art, housed in a handsome neoclassical building in Exchange Square in the heart of the city centre. The building itself has a distinguished history: constructed in 1778 as the town house of tobacco lord William Cunninghame, it later served as the Royal Exchange, where merchants traded, and then as Stirling's Library. It became GoMA in 1996, when Glasgow reopened it as a contemporary art space with four floors of gallery space. The collection features work by Scottish and international artists, frequently including politically and socially engaged pieces. Outside the entrance stands a bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington by Carlo Marochetti (1844), and since the 1980s, a tradition has developed of placing a traffic cone on the Duke's head. The city council's periodic attempts to stop the practice have all failed, and the coned Wellington has become one of Glasgow's most beloved and photographed sights.
Did you know? The traffic cone atop the Duke of Wellington statue has become such an iconic Glasgow symbol that in 2013 plans to raise the plinth to prevent it were abandoned after a 10,000-signature public petition.
How long should you spend at Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)?
Plan about ~60 min at Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). That is enough to take it in and hear its narrated story; stay longer if it grabs you. The tour is self-guided, so there is no rush.
Is Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) worth visiting?
Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) is one of the 22 sights the Gingerguide team researched and narrated in Glasgow, so it earns a place on a self-guided walk. Its story explains why it matters, and you can ask the AI guide anything the story leaves open.
Nearby stops in Glasgow
Hear the story of Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)
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