from Liverpool Echo...

Canon cinema back in action

A FORMER Liverpool cinema is to become the welcome point for the city’s international arts biennial.

The listed art deco ex-Canon cinema in Lime Street will be used as the official visitor centre and promotions base for thousands of tourists coming to the UK’s biggest culture show.

The building, opened as the Forum Cinema in 1931, but closed for the past 10 years, is to undergo an immediate temporary transformation for use by biennial staff from September to November.

Apart from providing an information and educational unit, it will house an art work with a horror movie theme especially commissioned for the biennial.

Regeneration agency English Partnerships has given permission for the former cinema to be opened ahead of its planned long-term redevelopment by Urban Splash as a new York-style supper club and boutique hotel.

Lewis Biggs, director of the biennial said: "This is a key building immediately opposite Lime Street station.

"It’s been dark closed for many years and we are delighted to be able to open it up to the public again.

"It will also be home to a brilliant and spooky piece of art by Annette Messager, an artist who has represented France in the Venice Biennale."

The biennial visitor centre will open on September 15 and close on November 30.

Mr Biggs said: "We can only use part of the building as much of the interior of the old main screen area has been adversely affected by dry rot.

"Apart from providing a reception service for the biennial, the foyer will also house an education unit."

Opening up the cinema is part of the biennial’s stated intention of enhancing "grot spots" across the city.

Already revealed in the ECHO is the intention to build a Greek-style cinema on a former bombed site at the junction of Renshaw Street and Leece Street, opposite St Luke’s Church.

There are also plans for a traffic island garden with animated foliage in the Jamaica Street area.

www.biennial.com

International 08 Volunteers

From September to end November 08

Voluntary position; expenses up to £100 per week.

Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art, with a global reputation that puts the city on a par with other Biennial cities including Venice, Sao Paolo and Sydney. The International exhibition is the critical focus of Liverpool Biennial, commissioning 30-35 new works by international artists.

We are looking to recruit Volunteers to invigilate the International 08 exhibition. This position would suit a student or recent graduate keen gain work experience in contemporary visual art.

Job description and application form available from www.biennial.com or email jobs@biennial.com

Return hard copy applications forms to:

Lorna Woods Moses
Liverpool Biennial
PO Box1200
55 Jordan St
Liverpool
L69 1XB

Closing date: 28 July 2008

Biennial International 08 Production/ Installation Volunteers

Voluntary project based work (July to November); expenses up to £100 per week.

Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art, with a global reputation that puts the city on a par with other Biennial cities including Venice, Sao Paolo and Sydney. The International exhibition is the critical focus of Liverpool Biennial, commissioning 35 new works by international artists.

Liverpool Biennial is looking to recruit a team of technical assistants who will provide hands-on technical support for the production, installation and de-installation of artworks for International 08. These positions provide an exciting opportunity to work alongside artists participating in the International exhibition, and to contribute to the delivery of an international exhibition across multiple venues.

Further information available from www.biennial.com or email: jobs@biennial.com

Please send a CV and cover letter detailing your experience and availability to work to:
Gema Melgar
Liverpool Biennial
PO Box 1200
55 Jordan St
Liverpool
L69 1XB

Closing Date: 8 July 2008

Visible Virals - Transport and Parks launched last night at Croxteth Park

Visible Virals - Transport and Parks is a new commission by British artist Nils Norman. His campaign for Liverpool's green spaces will appear across the city and its transport system throughout the summer.

The website www.liverpoolparks.org is an ongoing photographic depository and interactive database of Liverpool’s amazing parks and greenspaces, compiled by the artist in collaboration with the city’s Park Rangers and hopefully you. Each park visited has been walked and photographed, in order to share and draw attention to the unique architecture, history, design and natural details of each.

To complement the project, a light-hearted advertising campaign draws attention to Liverpool’s unique and often little-known parks.

This playful campaign repackages each park’s identity as if it were a product or holiday destination, sometimes alluding to phrases and buzzwords of classic popular adverts. The posters will appear on buses, bus shelters, in stations and on billboards citywide during the summer of 2008. The documentation can be found on the Artwork page.

Visible Virals is part of the year-long public art programme commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company as part of European Capital of Culture 2008, managed by Liverpool Biennial and supported by Liverpool City Council Parks & Environment Service and Merseytravel.

www.liverpoolparks.org

Between Sunday June 8th and Thursday June 12th 2008, the Kitchen Monument will take root in various locations across Bootle and South Sefton. The week long series of discussion events in the Bootle and South Sefton areas of Merseyside is in collaboration with German architect practice raumlaborberlin.

raumlaborberlin created the Kitchen Monument structure as a high profile and unique venue for local people to come together and discuss issues around the changing environment and regeneration. The programme which will unfold in Bootle and South Sefton will look at the impact specific buildings and local resources, such as the Leeds – Liverpool canal, should have on the re-imagining of an area.

We would very much welcome your attendance at one of the events as part of the week long discussions. Click here to download a pdf programme.

The Art for Places project is a three year demonstration project developed from a unique partnership between NewHeartlands, Liverpool Biennial, three leading RSL’s in Merseyside (Vicinity, Plus and Riverside), Arts Council England North West, and Liverpool, Sefton & Wirral City Councils. The project will explore how best to integrate art into regeneration areas as part of the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme.

This will be done through the commissioning of artworks for the public realm as part of the HMR regeneration process in each of the three local authority areas across Merseyside. The aim is to complement good urban design through a focus on the social investment in public open space and to aid the design of neighbourhood schemes which go beyond the purely functional and create places that reflect the aspirations, identity and life of a particular place or community.

www.biennial.com

Visible Virals - Transport and Parks launch
Tuesday 3 June, 6-8pm

Croxteth Hall & Country Park
Croxteth Hall Lane, Liverpool L12 0HB

Visible Virals - Transport and Parks is a new commission by British artist Nils Norman. His campaign for Liverpool's green spaces will appear across the city and its transport system throughout the summer.

As part of the launch of the project, you're invited to spend a summer evening exploring the curiosities of the Croxteth Hall estate. Parks staff will be on hand to give informal tours of Croxteth Hall, the Walled Garden and the Botanical Collection.

Visible Virals is part of a series of public artworks commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and funded by Liverpool Culture Company as part of European Capital of Culture 2008.

For further info contact helen@biennial.com

www.biennial.com

New Biennial website
Very nice
www.biennial.com

Learning and Inclusion Internship

Liverpool Biennial are looking to recruit an enthusiastic and creative individual keen to develop their experience of Learning and Inclusion activity within the arts sector as we build towards the launch of the Liverpool Biennial 2008.

37.5 hours per week. 6 month contract from June to December 2008.
Closing date for applications Friday 6 June 2008.
Interview date Friday 20 June 2008.

Internships are voluntary but expenses will be paid.

All applications should include a completed application form and an equal opportunities form.
Email: jobs@biennial.com to request an application form or download from www.biennial.com
Post applications to Lorna Woods Moses, Liverpool Biennial, 55 New Bird Street, PO Box 1200, L69 1XB.

Contact ros@biennial.com for further information about the position.

from biennial.com...

New website launching in May!

18/04/08
Mid May will see the launch of a fantastic new online home for Liverpool Biennial. With a host of interactive features and extensive content covering all our activity, the new site will be the place to discover, and share in, the run up to the 5th Liverpool Biennial festival, which opens on 20 September 2008.

There are also lots of other exciting ways to engage with Liverpool Biennial online – you can join our Facebook group, check out our profile on ArtReview and see regularly updated photos on our Flickr photostream – and look out for Biennial podcasts launching soon.

Taking the theme of MADE UP, the International 08 exhibition will once again see 30-40 international artists producing new commissions for the show. Click here to see the list of confirmed artists.

Finance Assistant £15k pro rata (2 days / 15hrs a week)
Contracted until 31 March 2009.

Liverpool Biennial is a charitable agency engaging art with people and place, and promotes the UK’s festival of international contemporary visual art.

The Finance Assistant will support the Biennial team in maintaining accurate financial administration; and effective, reliable and legally compliant financial records and reports, which advise, support and record Liverpool Biennial’s programme of activities.

The post requires reliability, initiative, confidentiality, attention to detail and close liaison with the Finance Officer and Operations Manager.

Information / application forms available from www.biennial.com or email: jobs@biennial.com

Closing date: 11 April 2008. Interviews week commencing 21 April 2008

www.biennial.com

Taken from the 24hour museum website but I've added links for all the artists (hope I got the right ones, it took ages!)

The Liverpool Biennial 2008 will be an exploration of the power of the artistic imagination, promise the organisers, with the theme of ‘making things up’ at its heart.

The fifth international art biennial in the city is going under the title MADE UP, celebrating all manner of invention – utopias and dystopias, narrative fiction and fantasy, myth and lies, prophesies and spectacle. The festival will be about imagination as the dynamo behind art, and its capacity to transport us, suspend disbelief and produce alternative realities.

The emphasis will continue to be on commissioning new work, and a great roster of artists is already in conversation with the Biennial producers about ideas for this year’s festival, running from September 20 to November 30 2008.

Among them are…

Ai Weiwei (China), Atelier Bow Wow (Japan), Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Manfredi Beninati (Italy), David Blandy (UK), U-Ram Choe (Korea), Adam Cvijanovic (USA), Nancy Davenport (Canada), Diller Scofidio + Renfro (USA), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), Rodney Graham (Canada), Tue Greenfort (Denmark), Hubbard & Birchler (Ireland/Switzerland), Jesper Just (Denmark), Otto Karvonen (Finland), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Ulf Langheinrich (Germany), Gabriel Lester (Netherlands), Annette Messager (France), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Khalil Rabah (Palestine), Royal Art Lodge (Canada), Sarah Sze (USA), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina), Richard Woods (UK).

The festival will run over multiple sites as usual, including The Walker (National Museums Liverpool), Open Eye Gallery, Bluecoat Centre, FACT (the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and A Foundation at Greenland Street.

Art on show at FACT will focus on the power of the mind to make up meaning when faced with complete abstraction and sensory deprivation, while The Bluecoat Centre will look at imagined futures, both individual and collective. Tate Liverpool and Open Eye Gallery will consider the ambiguous territory between the real and the unreal.

More than half of the 30-40 commissions will be situated in the public realm, keeping it a defining feature of the Biennial. A series of major new public art projects commissioned by Liverpool Biennial in partnership with the Culture Company as part of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Programme will be on show in the city and its neighbourhoods at the same time as MADE UP.

The curatorial team for MADE UP is Lewis Biggs and Sorcha Carey (Liverpool Biennial), Bryan Biggs and Sara-Jayne Parsons (Bluecoat), Mike Stubbs and Karen Allen (FACT), Patrick Henry (Open Eye) and Laurence Sillars (Tate Liverpool).

www.biennial.com

Liverpool Biennial is delighted to announce that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation will support a series of new commissions by European artists over a three-year period.

The award for the Gulbenkian European Commissions begins in 2008, Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, and continues until 2010.

Celebrating 10 years of commissioning ambitious and challenging new work by leading and emerging international artists, Liverpool Biennial’s 2008 International exhibition takes ‘Made Up’ as its theme. A number of Europe’s foremost artists have been commissioned to respond to this as part of the Gulbenkian award.

Lewis Biggs, Director of Liverpool Biennial, said, “We are delighted with this award, which recognises the intrinsic fit between the Gulbenkian’s ambition and record in supporting the realisation of top quality art from across Europe, and our own. This award will enable some impressive new commissions for Made Up, our 2008 international exhibition, and our development of an equally ambitious programme for 2010.”

Andrew Barnett, Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the UK, said: “This major award to Liverpool Biennial reflects three of the Gulbenkian Foundation’s main interests: the making of adventurous new artworks; working with an established organisation outside London; and promoting a pan-European perspective.”

www.biennial.com

I met Paula Ridley a few times, many years ago. She knows her art, I recall she owns a great portrait of herself painted by Sam Walsh.

Former chair of V&A to chair Biennial Board

(Jan 18 2008 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post)

LIVERPOOL Biennial has appointed Paula Ridley as the new chair of its board.

The former chairman of the V&A Museum will take up the post in March and takes hold of the mantle from Declan McGonagle, who remains on the board.

Director Lewis Biggs said: “Paula comes to us with considerable experience at the top level of our national arts organisations, and we look forward to benefiting from her leadership, contacts, and commitment to quality when she takes up her role as Chairman of the Biennial’s Board.”

Ms Ridley CBE, is a graduate of the University of Liverpool and until very recently was a member of its council. She has a long connection with Liverpool, and was appointed the first Chairman of Tate Liverpool, a post she held for 10 years while also serving as a Tate Trustee and as a Trustee of the National Gallery.

In 1998, she was appointed to the Chairmanship of the V&A Museum from which she has just retired after nine years.

She said: “Liverpool Biennial is clearly one of the most innovative visual arts organisations in the UK.

“I feel privileged to join the Biennial during Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, at such an exciting time for the city. I’m also looking forward to working closely with Lewis and the Board during the next phase of the Biennial’s growth.”

You may have seen these large white texts painted on walls in the city centre.
I assume they got permission otherwise its just graffiti isn't it.
You can participate - well, slightly. Details below.

From biennial.com...
Visible Virals has launched!

24/01/08
For their project titled One Year in Liverpool, part of the Visible Virals project, Stockholm artists collective AAPE are investigating the concept of ‘the average Liverpudlian’ through their life, behaviour and consumer habits. The project takes its basis from statistics, gradually feeding unusual facts into the public realm over the year and inviting people in the city to provide information about themselves. The project will manifest itself in a series of installations that will spread through unexpected locations in the city centre to reveal the bigger picture. AAPE are Amber Morrison, Alexander Kurtlandsky, Peter Genberg and Eric Ericsson.

The project launched in January 2008, and there are now artworks appearing in public places across the city.

Visit the project website here and participate in the project by adding your statistics! You can also check out images of the works on Fickr here

Liverpool Biennial - UPDATE Event

Thursday February 7th 2008, 6 - 9pm
Liverpool John Moores University
68 Hope Street
Liverpool

UPDATE is an information sharing opportunity for exhibitions, projects and events planned to take place during Liverpool Biennial 2008. Artists, curators, organisers and galleries will introduce their programme in brief pitches, followed by an informal drink and the opportunity to make new contacts and explore possibilities for collaboration.

If you have plans for Liverpool Biennial 2008 we would love to hear from you, and if you are interested in meeting artists and curators working in Liverpool, we would love to see you there. Since 2004 UPDATE events have offered an important opportunity for the visual art community to make connections in the city, and have provided a springboard for new projects and working relationships.

Even if your preparations are still in progress, your contribution and presence would be greatly valued.

For more information contact sean@biennial.com
www.biennial.com