Glasgow’s mural advert row shows how weak oversight is failing the city

There is an undeniable poetry tied up in the latest Glasgow mural row. When advertisers commissioned the piece, it’s unclear if they realised the beautiful, Debordian irony of what would unfold. When it first appeared last week, it was described as an “impressive artwork”. This week, however, the work has reignited calls to tighten up legislation on mural advertisements.

The quarrel centres around a massive gable end overlooking the Barrowland Ballroom, which has been transformed into a painting advertising James McAvoy’s new film, California Dreamin’. The film is about the real-life Dundonian rap duo Silibil N’ Brains, who pretended to be rappers from California to get a record deal, appearing on MTV before their con unravelled.

The mural is not of the actual pair, but of the actors Samuel Bottomley and Séamus McLean Ross playing the pair. And the mural isn’t really a mural; it’s an advertisement playing a mural (so to speak). The spectacle itself is as layered as the debate it has ignited.

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Should advertisers be allowed to advertise with a mural? Or does that erode Glasgow’s standing as a destination for renowned street art? Are advertisers even allowed to put up these hybrids, or are they exploiting a loophole in planning legislation? Can an ad be art? Does it matter if the work is going to a local artist and helping them pay the bills?

Glasgow Labour candidate Paul Sweeney told The Herald the mural was “yet another” example of advertisers exploiting a ’28-day’ rule under planning laws that is meant for short-term, community-oriented temporary uses of land for things like fairs or events to put up painted billboards. This legislation operates separately from the advertising consent regime, which means even if a commercial mural could be characterised as a 28-day temporary use (itself questionable, since the rule covers land, not buildings), advertisement consent would still be required separately. You can’t substitute planning permission for advertising consent or claim one exempts you from the other.

The overlap between the legislation is confusing, but it’s not an unknown issue; it’s just that no one in the local government has stepped up to the plate to sort the situation out. Other examples (pointed out by Mr Sweeney) include the 2023 Clarks controversy involving a big painting of a pair of desert boots that appeared on a Duke Street gable end, prompting public outcry. Then there was an RBS mural painted off the Broomielaw that sparked concerns over the “creeping commercialisation” of Glasgow’s mural landscape.

It’s not that painted advertisements themselves are the problem; it’s the lack of oversight and regulation. I would much rather see a colourful mural than a decaying blank wall, even if it is sponsored by an electrolyte company or some other commercial venture. There just needs to be coherent legislation – and advertisements should clearly be labelled as such. After all, we wouldn’t want punters flocking to The Barras to think “Get Rich or Try Lyin’” was a bit of state-sponsored advice rather than a film tagline.

The issue of design quality is a little trickier. Giving counsellors or council officers direct control over mural aesthetics would be a complete disaster. If you doubt this, I direct you to the Glasgow 850 logo and graphics. And then there’s the looming threat of AI imagery.

Mr Sweeney argued that the lack of a permission scheme leaves us “wide open to abuse and poor-quality AI-generated slop being painted in prominent locations across the city”.

Unfortunately for us, Glasgow City Council has demonstrated that it will, in fact, green-light AI-generated slop. In January, the local authority approved plans for a new mural at Elmbank Street based on an AI-generated design that included a bald eagle with a warped head, wind turbines, solar panels, a Wallace Monument lookalike, a stag, highland cows, and a backwards-moving train.

The building’s owner, Derek Paterson and the mural artist he hired, Rogue One, were quick to assure everyone that the real mural would have nothing to do with AI and the designs submitted were merely “to convey an idea on which the mural will be loosely based”.

Rogue One went on to defend the mock-up Paterson used to “get the ball rolling”. “He wanted to see if he could get planning permission and perhaps some funding to actually make a new mural happen,” he told The Herald. So, rest assured, Glasgow, the real mural that gets painted doesn’t actually have to have anything to do with what the council approved for the gable end.

There is also the mural of Mary Barbour that was unveiled in Govan last May by artist Jeks. It was billed as symbolic of a modern “re-imagining” of the housing activist, but it seems indistinguishable to me from every other face that appears when I search “AI-generated woman” in my browser.

Mural of a "re-imagined" Mary Barbour in Govan (Image: Devon Poole)

Mary Barbour (Image: xx)

On top of the AI threat, there is the laziness that London-based PR and advertising firms demonstrate by shipping up London-based painters to do these advertisements rather than hiring from Glasgow’s abundant talent pool. Artists need commercial work to pay the bills – public funding for the arts is in crisis. Friends of mine who work in the sector, painting murals, wouldn’t survive without these types of commercial commissions. And the temporality of these ads means this type of job comes up a lot more often than a public commission.

Advertising is everywhere. Flashing on billboards, interrupting your social media feeds and your news articles, on buses, television, music, streaming, podcasts, radio, your dreams. We are at risk of these mural ads corrupting our street art landscape at the moment, only because the regulation is so patchy. I don’t find a hand-painted ad to be inherently problematic; it just needs to clearly be labelled as such.

In the wake of all this mural controversy, as I write this, Glasgow City Council has announced it is now seeking feedback to help improve its City Centre Mural Fund. The survey looks like it was slapped together in a hurry, and asks only if you are an artist, whether you were aware of the fund, and whether or not you have applied – followed by asking why you didn’t apply for the fund, and how the council might encourage wider participation.

The council oversees an incredible amount of unused gable ends, all of which could be transformed into something to look at rather than something to look away from. Better legislation could mean that both the council, community, and local artists benefit from temporary advertisement murals. But without oversight, our street art could disintegrate into a mass of corporate slop.

Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1

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Glasgow’s mural advert row shows how weak oversight is failing the city

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