Liverpool has arguably the best quality and range of visual art venues of any English regional city. This site brings you the inside track on Liverpool's vibrant arts scene, including the essential must sees, news and reviews.
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Agnes Meyer-Brandis The Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Facility, 2011 Installation view at FACT as part of Republic of the Moon Photographer: Brain Slater
As the players in the new 21st century race for the Moon line up – the USA, China, India and Russia jostling with private corporations interested in exploiting the Moon’s resources – a group of artists are declaring a ‘Republic of the Moon’: a ‘micronation’ for alternative visions of lunar life. Continue reading
Emily Speed
Emily Speed is a sculptor, artist and a maker of books working in Liverpool. Her work explores the temporary and the transient through reference to architecture and the body. She examines buildings both literally and metaphorically, as physical shelters and as containers for memory, bound with the history of their occupiers. Her work is often lonely and isolated with a seemingly short life – Shelters offering the briefest respite and storage to hold only the lightest items. Art Feast caught up with Emily to talk about her current and future projects and her time at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Continue reading
Gina Czarnecki’s career to date encompasses film and installation, with an emphasis on human relationships to image, disease, evolution, genetic research and specialising in advanced technologies of image production.
Created in collaboration with bio-technologists, computer programmers, dancers and sound artists, Czarnecki’s projects confront issues surrounding the convergence of biology and technology, and the possible corruption of the human genetic mix.
Ahead of her up coming exhibition in the Bluecoat, Art Feast got together with Gina to talk about inspiration, creation and her latest work Palaces.
Congratulations on your upcoming exhibition at the Bluecoat Liverpool. Continue reading
On Saturday 19th November The Royal Standard in collaboration with Drawing Paper will be hosting a drawing marathon, with 12 hours of activity planned from midday to midnight.
Through a series of talks, performances and timed drawing sessions we will be exploring this most primal of mediums and its relationship with, and response to, other creative practices. With planned talks, performances and an ongoing “drop-in and draw” space, you are invited to come along and see what happens as drawing sessions collide and collude with a range of other disciplines in a mash-up of improvisatory revelation.
From spoken word performances, video and music in the form of electronic soundscapes, experimental rhythmic indulgences, classical renditions and pop soundings we have a day full of activities for you to experience and explore.
We are keen on direct participation in our experiment but if you’d like to come along to just watch and discuss what’s going on then feel free to drop-in and enjoy the performances, to view drawings in our gallery space and take some refreshment in our knocked-up lounge area.
We will be opening the gallery again on Sunday 20th November to assess the results of the previous day’s activity so please join us to examine what has been produced. Continue reading
Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada/Arizona, 2007 ©Mitch Epstein. Courtesy of the Artur Walther Foundation, Ulm
Sometimes bigger is better and Mitch Epstein’s inaugural show for the launch of the new Open Eye Gallery only goes to prove that point. American Power examines how energy is produced and used in the American landscape. The project began when Epstein photographed a small town in Ohio that was in the process of being ‘erased’ by the American Electrical Power Company. Residents had been ‘paid a lump sum to leave, never come back and never complain in the media or in court if they became sick from environmental complaints’. Continue reading
© National Museums Liverpool
Interpretation of literary works through artistic medium became popular in the early Twentieth Century and Henri Matisse’s illustrations, originating in the early 1930s, are certainly amongst the most renowned examples of this art form. The works are courtesy of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s admirable art collection, as part of their Art in our Communities programme, which aims to share artwork with the wider public. They certainly did not fail to provide with this show and as the exhibition promised, there are illustrations and text on display from four of Matisse’s most significant books, spread across two spacious galleries.
Pasiphaé, Chant de Minos (Les Crétois), 1944, which tells the story of Pasiphaé who mated with a bull and spawned a half-bull, half-human creature known as the Minotaur, was another work of literature that inspired Matisse. Henry de Motherland composed the text for this book with accompanied by lino prints, white against black, carved with such fluency and expertise that the line work is undoubtedly Matisse mastery. Linoleum carving was a favoured medium adopted my Matisse as it enabled him to encapsulate the subtle movements of the hand, giving each piece a charming sense of intricacy and craftsmanship. Continue reading
Alice Pleasance Liddell, Summer 1858 Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) Alice Pleasance Liddell, Summer 1858 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Curiouser and Curiouser – the feeling sweeping the nation as Tate Liverpool director, Christoph Grunenberg oversees his final exhibition at the infamous gallery. The daylight diminishes and the Albert Dock cobbles are awash with tottering heels as a towering Alice looms so ethereally, projected onto a waterfront building as the gallery opens its doors to their latest creative venture: Alice in Wonderland. Continue reading
Imogen Stidworthy is an artist whose work delves deep into issues facing communities and individuals today. She works with voices effected by specific social or physical conditions, to question the role played by language in defining social space. Imogen won the Liverpool Art Prize in 2008. Her work has been shown internationally for many years and since coming to live in Liverpool in 2002 after ten years abroad, her reputation has been growing in the UK.
Founded in 1977 Open Eye is an independent not for profit photography gallery based in Liverpool. Open Eye is one of the UK’s leading photography spaces, and the only gallery dedicated to photography and related media in the North West of England.
November is a big month for Open Eye as after a lot of hard work and development they are re-launching in a brand new purpose-built home on the Liverpool Waterfront.
The office being unpacked
The new gallery is split over two floors. The ground floor will present an international programme of cutting edge contemporary photography whilst the first floor will showcase a changing exhibition from the in-house archive.
They will also commission a series of Wall Works. Large-scale graphic installations for the external facade of the gallery. The first commission going to S Mark Gubb.
Art Feast armed with a hard hat and high visibility vest, went down for a sneak peak and tour of the unfinished gallery space. Continue reading
Naive John
Naive John (born Ian Wylie) is a British artist based in Liverpool. His work shows attention to detail with subjects that combine elements from popular culture alongside the mythic and mundane. His last and most famous painting The Chav-ant Garde was commissioned by the influential collector David Roberts for his Art Foundation in London. A large-scale group portrait of the artist’s dysfunctional family, it uses the Teletubbies as stand-ins for the artist’s family members.
Naive john is also a highly regarded visiting speaker having given lectures at TATE Liverpool, John Moores University and most recently the University of London.
Art Feast caught up with Naive John to talk about philosophy, inspiration and pseudonyms Continue reading
