The exhibition features works from 35 filmmakers and photographers. Marcel Broodthaers - La Pipe (Magritte) (1969) 35mm film. Courtesy Maria Gilissen, Brussels

Fern Ross enjoys an challenging but accessible group show at Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts.

Glasgow’s CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts) shows that what you see isn’t always what you get at its current exhibition, titled In the Poem About Love You Don’t Write the Word Love.

Running until January 28 2006, curator Tanya Leighton has brought together 35 artists and filmmakers who have played with ideas of truth, representation and power to ask us as viewers to question what we see and to think as we look.

“Over 5,000 people have seen the exhibition so far,” explained Bec Carey-Grieve, CCA’s Communications Manager. “It takes dense and difficult works and punctuates them with big-name trailblazers including [Jean-Luc] Godard and [Andy] Warhol, and brings together coherent work from wildly disparate historical experiences.”

Standout pieces include Emily Jacir’s Sexy Semite, proving that art can be subtle yet political. Jacir is a unique conceptual artist, successfully mixing humour with pathos, and creates understated yet challenging work.

Bernadette Corporation - Get Rid of Yourself, (2002). DVD. Courtesy of the artists, and Electronic Art Intermix, New York

For Sexy Semite she asked Palestinians living in New York to place personal ads in the Village Voice newspaper seeking Israeli mates so they could return home, utilizing Israel’s law of return.

The newspaper clippings, complete with adverts circled and the media response they received, are displayed to provoke and draw the viewer in, making them question the truth behind what they are reading.

John Smith’s black and white film, Girl Chewing Gum, 1976, also examines this relationship between looking and meaning, asking what comes first.

A voice from behind the camera appears to be directing the action before an interpreting voice is introduced forcing more questions from the viewer.

The gallery’s audience feedback board indicates that the exhibition has been a hit with the public with comments ranging from noting that the “photographic works are beautiful and moving,” to “intriguing, well displayed and thought provoking”.

David Lamelas - Rock Star (Character Appropriation) (1974). Black-and-white photograph. Courtesy of the artist

Kirsty Roarty, a student visiting the show, explained how the show helped her relate to contemporary art:

“Things like Tracey Emin’s unmade bed and that cow by Damien Hirst, I just don’t really think they’re art, but this show was different,” she explained.

“I found it really thought provoking, especially the work by Emily Jacir and Walid Raad’s film installation.”

Demonstrating that meanings can be easily misinterpreted or intentionally confused, the exhibition encourages the viewer to question everything they encounter in our increasingly mediated reality and breaks free from many of the misconceptions surrounding contemporary art.