Third Eye Centre Records

The archives contains administrative paperwork, committee papers and legal documents, publicity materials such as exhibition posters and flyers, publications such as exhibition catalogues, documentation such as VHS, audio recordings and images in multiple formats.

In 1974 the Scottish writer and playwright, Tom McGrath, founded The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow. Described by the Guardian as 'a shrine to the avant garde', the centre hosted visiting artists and performers such as Allen Ginsberg, Whoopi Goldberg, John Byrne, Edwin Morgan and Kathy Acker, as well as quickly becoming the focus for Glasgow's counter culture. When it consolidated its activities in the 1980s it presented some of the key exhibitions by the new Glasgow painters such as Steven Campbell, Ken Currie and Peter Howson and was the home of the National Review of Live Art.

With the demise of The Third Eye Centre at the turn of the 1990s, the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) established in its place, opening in 1992. In 1996, the organisation was awarded a lottery grant to redevelop and expand the building complex and in 2001 the newly refurbished CCA opened to the public. Now housing a spectrum of cultural tenants as well as a café/restaurant, bar and cinema. In 2006, the organisation itself underwent a profound cultural shift, deciding to pursue a more open curatorial policy - an 'open source' approach - which encouraged artists and organisations to propose their own programs to sit alongside those curated by CCA. Today, that policy has produced a livelier and more varied program that offers a new kind of accessibility to audiences, drawing on the spirit of The Third Eye Centre and the early history of the CCA.*

Commencing in January 2012 The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in partnership with the CCA embarked on a speculative research project to open up previously inaccessible archive material to assist research and reflection upon the causes and conditions which encouraged this renaissance of the visual arts in Glasgow since the late 1970s. The research team, led by Dr Francis McKee and Ross Sinclair, have overseen the cataloguing of existing archival material from the Third Eye Centre and CCA (material spanning the period 1972- the present) and conducted a series of interviews with artists, critics, curators and art administrators from across that time span to construct an archive for future investigators.

*Information taken from CCA website

The collection has been arranged into five series:

TE1 - Paper records
TE2 - Film records
TE4 - Photograph records
TE5 - Publications
TE6 - Brochures and Flyers

Some files are restricted in accordance with Data Protection legislation. Enquire regarding access.

Detailed catalogue compiled by Collette Rayner between April-June 2013 and revised by Carrie Skinner July 2013. Collection Level Description revised by Kristen Nelson with inspiration from previous CLD from the collection in 2022.

Photographic copies of material in the archive can be supplied for private study purposes only, depending on the condition of the documents.

A number of items within the archive remain within copyright under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; it is the responsibility of users to obtain the copyright holder's permission for reproduction of copyright material for purposes other than research or private study.

Prior written permission must be obtained from the CCA for publication or reproduction of any material within the archive.