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.”