Villain of the piece

[imomus]

It was hard to be a man at the Barbara Kruger installation at the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art yesterday. A whole room was covered with text about what monsters of sex and violence men are, and in the information area it was all related to life in Glasgow with a series of chilling facts and figures about wife-beating in the city. It made Glasgow's Argyll Street feel like Elm Street and all men look like potential Freddy Krugers, about to batter their pinch-featured, ruddy-nosed wives or slay the Umbro- and Vodaphone-blazoned wee'uns they dragged behind them through the drizzle. It made Aidan Moffat's bruised, obscene, honest, romantic, depressing, dour lyrics at the Arab Strap acoustic show we saw immediately afterwards all the more apt.