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 I suppose we are obliged to do these things but maybe the couple of hours in St George's Hall would have been better spent looking at some of the exhibitions.
Continue reading "Culture Secretary Opens the 5th Liverpool Biennial" »
 These two sporty cars were outside St George's Hall on Friday for the official opening of the 2008 Liverpool Biennial.
Continue reading "Made Up Cars" »
 Many people in recent times, including myself, have complained that the Liverpool Biennial website, although looking quite nice in a colourful, elegant way, was rather static. there was little reason to revisit except maybe to check the dates of an exhibition.
Continue reading "Made Up Consequences" »
from Liverpool Echo...
Canon cinema back in action
Jun 20 2008 Joe Riley
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
 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
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
 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
From the Biennial...
Send us a photo of something 'made up' – we’ll post our favourites on the Liverpool Biennial Flickr account, and the best entry will win a cool black Liverpool Biennial hooded sweatshirt.
MADE UP is the title of the 2008 Liverpool Biennial showpiece International Exhibition – an exploration of the power of the artistic imagination.
Email photos to sean@biennial.com together with your name and email address. Just one photo per entrant please. The closing date is 22nd February 2008
www.biennial.com
 The Liverpool Biennial Blog is part of artinliverpool.com which covers all things art in Liverpool and includes the famous Liverpool Art Blog as well as listings, links, reviews, news, forum and artists directory.
We also produce the Liverpool Art Map and have created the new Liverpool Art Prize.
We have just re-designed the site to make it easier to manage and navigate so take a look at the home page
www.artinliverpool.com
Just found this on the Art Newspaper website.
What a fantastic idea, hope it happens.
Tate Liverpool has commissioned the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to make an ambitious installation for the Liverpool Biennial, opening next September. This will span the width of the historic former dockyard where the gallery is located. The engineering firm Arup is currently conducting a feasibility study for Web of Light which will be concluded by the end of this month.
The work will consist of illuminated crystalline strands suspended from steel cables which stretch across the Albert Dock. A spider made out of crystals will hang in the corner nearest to Tate; the entire installation will weigh over eight tonnes. The gallery will need to raise around £400,000 to realise the work.
Ai Weiwei has already made an installation for Tate Liverpool included in the exhibition “The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China? earlier this year. Fountain of Light was a two-tonne eight-metre-high steel structure illuminated like a chandelier which floated in the middle of the dock.
Simon Groom, formerly Head of Exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, now director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, says: “Ai Weiwei very much liked the architecture of the Albert Dock, as well as the sense of energy in Liverpool which he compared to Beijing. Given the success and popular appeal of the first work, it seemed only natural to want to pursue something of an even more ambitious and spectacular nature, and Web of Light promises to be the ‘must-see’ landmark public work for Capital of Culture. The work is incredibly ambitious, and of a scale to dwarf every other major public commission—but this is what happens when the ambitions of a country like China collide with those of a city like Liverpool!?
Liverpool Jackpot Launch
Switch on: Thursday 8th November 2007, 6pm
Metal, Kensington
Metal, 6 Clare Terrace, Marmaduke St, L7
Garston Cultural Village
Uncle J s, Saint Mary’s Rd, L19
Rotunda, Kirkdale
Rotunda College, Great Mersey St, L5
Following the success of Animal, the Winter Lights project for 2006, internationally renowned French artist Franck Scurti was commissioned to propose a second series of amazing new Winter Lights and has created a Liverpool Jackpot for Kirkdale, Kensington and Garston.
There is a unique Jackpot to be seen in each neighbourhood and each sequence contains an image of food, a body part and a phrase, taken from British press in consultation with local residents.
Last year’s Winter Lights, Animal, will also be returning to light up neighbourhoods across Liverpool.
Look at a simulation of all three Liverpool Jackpots here
For more details and access information contact franny@biennial.com
Locate the three sites on Google Maps: here for Garston, here for Kirkdale and here for Kensington.
Liverpool Jackpot is a Liverpool Biennial Learning and Inclusion project funded by Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 and developed in collaboration with Rotunda College, Garston Cultural Village and Metal.
www.biennial.com
From Daily Post...
08 Biennial set to bring in 500,000 city visitors
LIVERPOOL’S Biennial art festival brought over £13.5m to the city last year according to a new report, and organisers say next year’s festival will attract over 500,000 people.
89% of visitors to the 2006 contemporary art event, which featured exhibits showcased at venues all over the city, rated their visit as very good or good, but many struggled to find the attractions because of poor signage and guides, the report and survey from The Mersey Partnership (TMP) reveals.
It concludes the least popular exhibits were a giant question mark hung over Cammell Laird by artist Hans Peter Kuhn, and Priscilla Monge’s football pitch installation, which lay beside the Port of Liverpool building.
St Luke’s Church, at the top of Bold Street and FACT received the highest scores for visitor satisfaction at their exhibits in the survey, although FACT’s score was lower than in 2004’s Biennial.
More...
LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL PUTS NORTH WEST ON THE MAP
Liverpool Biennial, the UK's largest contemporary art festival, was recognised last night for Putting the North West on the Map at the Art 07 awards. The award honours Liverpool Biennial’s success in commissioning international artists to make work in Liverpool that challenges, surprises and delights its audiences while attracting attention from around the country and the world.
In 2006 Liverpool Biennial delivered Antony Gormley's Another Place, credited with building profile, business confidence and visitor numbers by bodies such as The Mersey Partnership and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The 2006 Liverpool Biennial festival achieved international critical acclaim and attracted more than 400,000 visits, half from outside Merseyside, generating an economic impact of £13.5 million.
Lewis Biggs, Director of Liverpool Biennial, said "Liverpool Biennial commissions and presents world-class artists to create work which enriches the lives of the people of Liverpool and the lives of the people who visit, as well as changing the face of the city. Congratulations are also due to our partners for their part in this award."
Liverpool Biennial adds this latest accolade to a list of major awards, including the inaugural Lever Prize and the silver award for the Best Tourism Experience Award presented by VisitBritain Best.
www.biennial.com
From biennial.com...
Modern and Contemporary Art Consortium
26/07/07
Liverpool Biennial, Formby High School and Range High School have been continuing to develop MaCAC, a Creative Partnerships Merseyside project, as a programme of professional development for the teachers.
The project feeds into current priorities for the schools. Research has explored ways in which the stimulus of International 06, can be replicated in the school environment. The Biennial’s Learning and Inclusion Programme provided resources to support an activity day within each school. For Range High the focus was on looking at ways to stimulate pupils to explore their built environment and Formby High focused on exploring new sonic mediums and animation to record a day at school.
Work from the International 06 was exhibited throughout the day in and outside of the school’s buildings. Pupils were encouraged to look and look again at their everyday environment and question their relationship to it.
MaCAC (Modern and Contemporary Art Consortium) asks 'By collaborating as cultural organisations with teachers, can we develop a model to increase the use and profile of modern and contemporary arts for teaching and learning for creativity and cultural enrichment across the curriculum?'
There is an exhibition at Renew Rooms in Wood Street giving full details about this amazing installation.
'The most daring piece of public art ever commissioned in the UK', Turning the Place Over is artist Richard Wilson’s most radical intervention into architecture to date, turning a building in Liverpool’s city centre literally inside out. One of Wilson’s very rare temporary works, Turning the Place Over colonises Cross Keys House, Moorfields, and will be launched in June 2007 and will run through until end of 2008.
Co-commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company and Liverpool Biennial, co-funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and The Northern Way, and facilitated by Liverpool Vision, the project is a stunning trailblazer for Liverpool’s Year as European Capital of Culture 2008, and the jewel in the crown of the Culture Company’s public art programme.
You can watch a short visualisation here
More info on Biennial.com
from biennial.com..
New Learning and Inclusion Staff
There are two new members of the Learning and Inclusion team at Liverpool Biennial, joining Judy Thomas as Programme Manager – Franny George has started as Partnership Co-ordinator (Learning and Inclusion), and Ros Hyde as Learning and Inclusion Programme Assistant. Franny will be focusing on developing and maintaining relations between Liverpool Biennial and Merseyside community groups and individuals. Ros will be working across the Learning and Inclusion Department and building on the successful Visitor Programme.
Both Ros and Franny are practising artists in Liverpool, and have worked for Liverpool Biennial before. Ros co-ordinated the visitor programme for the 2006 festival – managing fusebox and the talks and tours programme. Franny worked as a freelance project manager on the schools’ project in 2006, as well as working on projects in 2002.
Ros and Franny join the Biennial at an exciting and challenging time. Celebrated as the deliverer of Liverpool’s International Festival of Contemporary Art, the organisation now operates as a visual arts agency delivering a range of projects year round.
Liverpool Biennial has achieved extraordinary growth in the last six years, not least through its Learning and Inclusion Programme’s committed delivery of educational objectives through a year round programme of activities and the festival programme: working with communities, formal education networks and visitors.
 Liverpool Biennial is proud to be taking part in Architecture Week 2007 (15-24 June).
The week consists of a vibrant programme of events taking place across the country including family workshops, informative architecture lectures, exhibitions and tours of buildings. Turning the Place Over, the Liverpool Biennial commissioned work by Richard Wilson will be a highlight of Architecture Week and will be accompanied by a talk, an exhibition and a teachers’ workshop.
- Friday 1 June to Friday 6 July: an exhibition of Wilson’s interventions into architectural space including Turning the Place Over will be on display at the RENEW Rooms on Wood Street, Liverpool.
- Thursday 14 June: The artist will be giving a talk at FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology).
- Friday 15 June: Liverpool Biennial and Metal invite teachers to a workshop where Richard Wilson will introduce his practice.
- Wednesday 20 June: Seminar on Creative uses for vacant land in areas of urban regeneration. Liverpool Biennial in collaboration with New Heartlands and Arts Council North West. This event can be booked directly on the RENEW NW website here.
Architecture Week offers a great opportunity to get involved and to celebrate and enjoy the innovative and unique architecture of the North West region. Visit architecture week North West’s website here to find out more and to book for the above events.
www.biennial.com
 Liverpool Biennial - Winter Lights 07/08 Artist Appointed
French artist Franck Scurti has been commissioned to create temporary lightworks for year two of the project, building on the success of Winter Lights 06/07. The project is a collaboration between Biennial Big Table members Rotunda College in Kirkdale, Garston Cultural Village and Metal in Kensington. This network was formed by the Biennial in 2005 to create a presence and a symbiotic relationship with its partners.
The ‘switch on’ of the lights will take place simultaneously in Speke, Anfield and Toxteth in November 2007. It is intended that Winter Lights 07/08 will extend the neighbourhoods presence ‘on the map’ bringing visitors and tourists from the city centre outwards and will involve an engagement project within each of the neighbourhood communities.
Franck Scurti was selected by the Big Table as his investigative approach within communities and his engaging and playful artworks will find a natural home within the neighbourhoods of Liverpool. Visit his website at www.franckscurti.net
In 2006 Liverpool Biennial’s Big Table commissioned artist Ron Haselden for year one of Winter Lights, the result was Animal (see image on left), a series of three neon lightworks sited at locations close to the premises of each organisation in their neighbourhoods. Ron’s Animal artworks were developed through workshops with local schools in each of the three areas and launched in November 2006 and the fourth, and as yet unseen, ‘Rabbit’ will be unveiled in November 2007.
Winter Lights forms part of the build up to Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, 2008.
www.biennial.com
 I now think there is a real danger that there may be ZERO funding for the Biennial Independents in 2008.
With the local elections on May 3rd now is the time to lobby councillors, MPs, the Arts Council and anyone else who may be interested. (More details below)
The Independents have never received funding from Liverpool Council and they already have a £20+million shortfall in the budget for next year. Now the Arts Council NW who entirely funded the 2006 Independents may be getting cold feet about resourcing any more as Grants for the Arts has been reduced by 35% as Lottery money gets rerouted to the London Olympics.
The Story So Far (briefly) Quoted from the CFO's document..
Several different management models have been used to facilitate the Independents. In 2004 the Afoundation employed an Independents Creative Facilitator (CFO), provided office services, a website and funds for the CFO to disburse to artists. ACE funds were also open to application from artists irrespective of their receipt of Afoundation monies. Although LIB’s curatorial policy excludes Liverpool artists from its International programme, as in previous Biennials they included Independents’ listings and events within their own promotional and marketing initiatives.
In 2005/06 the Independents lost its infrastructure. the Afoundation made a free unserviced office available to the Independents for nine months. All other resources were re-directed to the foundation’s project at Greenland Street.
In the same period LIB determined not to include the Independents in its promotional programmes as previous inclusion had attracted public criticism
of LIB for inaccurate information supplied to it by the Independents.
Mid-2006 ACE made £52.5K available to a new CFO to promote and support the 2006 programme and explore options for the Independents future infrastructure. As previously, ACE funds remained open to application from individual artists and artist-groups. Liverpool City has never financially resourced the Independents.
Grants For The Arts Cut - Quoting Peter Hewitt, Chief Exec of Arts Council England...
"Grants for the Arts budget will reduce to ￡54m in 2007/8 from ￡83m in 2006/7, a reduction of 35%. The Grants for the Arts budget in fact fluctuates every year and was, for example, ￡57m in 2003/4. Nevertheless the reduction between 2006/7 and 2007/8 is a material one.
We have thought very carefully about how best to manage this smaller budget and, having taken into account a number of views internally and externally, have now decided to do the following:
* Enforce more rigorously our current guidance which puts a ceiling of ￡200,000 on national activities (touring etc) grants
* Enforce more rigorously our current guidance which puts a ceiling of ￡100,000 on grants to organisations
(Leeway may be allowed on both the above – but only in a very small number of truly exceptional cases)
* Monitor carefully the proportion of the Grants for the Arts budget that is awarded to Regularly Funded Organisations. "
What to do?
Naturally the Independents Board will be doing all they can to secure funding. I'm sure it will help if everyone who is at all interested in seeing the Independents continue sends emails and letters to the authorities.
The email addresses of all local councillors are available on the liverpool.gov.uk website and MP's addresses are there too.
http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.asp?bcr=1
Please send emails and letters to your Liverpool Councillor as soon as possible and send copies to Warren Bradley (Council Leader) of course. Also to Mike Storey, Laurence Sidorczuk (Chair culture and observer on FACT's board) and Beatrice Fraenkel (Biennial and Bluecoat boards). Also lobby the Culture Company people from Jason Harborow down, especially the Artistic team.
Also get onto the Arts Council NW. The 2008 Independents should be the biggest and best ever, that appeared to be the Arts Council intention when they funded the last one but at the moment its looking like that really may have been the last one
 I don't think there's a lot to see yet but I will certainly be following this one with interest...
Turning the Place Over
Major new commission by artist Richard Wilson for Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008
The most daring piece of public art ever commissioned in the UK, Turning the Place Over is artist Richard Wilson’s most radical intervention into architecture to date, turning a building in Liverpool’s city centre literally inside out. One of Wilson’s very rare temporary works, Turning the Place Over colonises Cross Keys House, Moorfields, and will be launched on 18 May 2007 and will run through until end of 2008.
Co-commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company and Liverpool Biennial, co-funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and The Northern Way, and facilitated by Liverpool Vision, the project is a stunning trailblazer for Liverpool’s Year as European Capital of Culture 2008, and the jewel in the crown of the Culture Company’s public art programme.
Richard Wilson is one of Britain’s most renowned sculptors. He is internationally celebrated for his interventions in architectural space that draw heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of engineering and construction.
Turning the Place Over consists of an 8 metres diameter ovoid cut from the façade of a building in Liverpool city centre and made to oscillate in three dimensions. The revolving façade rests on a specially designed giant rotator, usually used in the shipping and nuclear industries, and acts as a huge opening and closing ‘window’, offering recurrent glimpses of the interior during its constant cycle during daylight hours.
The construction programme started in February 2007 and involves the careful deconstruction of the façade across three floors of the building, which is then reconstructed and fixed to the enormous pivot installed at the heart of the building. This astonishing feat of engineering will stun audiences on many levels. Disturbing and disorientating from a distance, from close-up passers-by have a thrilling experience as the building rotates above them.
Wilson has exhibited widely nationally and internationally for the past twenty years and has made major museum exhibitions and public works throughout the world. Wilson has also represented Britain in the Sydney, Sao Paulo and Venice Bienniales and been nominated for the Turner Prize on two occasions. He was one of a select number of artists invited to create a major public work for The Millennium Dome and the only British artist invited to participate in Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2000, the largest contemporary art project ever staged in Japan.
Wilson’s past projects have generated both critical and popular acclaim. His seminal installation 20:50, a sea of reflective sump oil which is permanently installed in the Saatchi Collection, was described as ‘one of the masterpieces of the modern age’ by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon in the BBC television series The History of British Art.
Lewis Biggs, Director of Liverpool Biennial said, “It’s a dream come true to be able to realise this fabulous artwork in Liverpool, and in the most appropriate context imaginable. We thank our funders and co-commissioner for their belief in our project, and Richard Wilson for his amazing vision. Turning the Place Over will be remembered and celebrated for as long as people’s jaws are capable of dropping.?
www.biennial.com
http://www.nwda.co.uk/
Study shows continued success for Liverpool Biennial 2006
The Mersey Partnership’s market research report on the fourth Liverpool Biennial, 16 September – 26 November 2006, has come up with some stunning headlines indicating that the event continues to grow as the UK’s contemporary visual art festival, and as major player in the cultural economy as well.
The 2006 festival received 400,370 visits - hitting its target and attracting 50,000 more than 2004. Of these visitors, 50% travelled from outside the Merseyside region, and the event created an additional £13.5 million spend in the city (5 times the investment of public funding it receives).
In comparison to 2004, the 2006 festival also attracted more staying visitors with the majority seeing it as an exciting event for Liverpool and something that the city can be proud of.
Visitors were interviewed from Chile, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and USA as well as from the UK.
Lewis Biggs, Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial said, ?These very encouraging figures repay the confidence of our funders and sponsors in the Biennial festival as the major international event in Liverpool’s cultural calendar, and they also provide recognition that Liverpool Biennial has achieved a unique position as the UK’s contribution to the global family of Biennials.?
www.biennial.com
From Biennial.com...
Liverpool Biennial appoints Learning and Inclusion Programme Manager
01/03/07
Liverpool Biennial has announced the appointment of Judy Thomas to the key post of Learning and Inclusion Programme Manager. Judy is currently Acting Head of Education and Public Programme at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead where she has worked since 2002. At Liverpool Biennial, she replaces Sharon Paulger who has taken up the post of Director of Inter-Action MK, a community arts charity in Milton Keynes.
Liverpool Biennial has achieved extraordinary growth in the last six years, not least though its Learning and Inclusion Programme’s committed delivery of educational objectives through a year round programme of activities and the festival programme; working with communities, formal education networks and visitors.
Judy, who will take up her post on 16 April said: “I am absolutely delighted to join the Biennial team and to be moving to Liverpool at such an exciting time. This position creates an opportunity to work across all the areas I feel most passionate about - engaging people with a dynamic programme of contemporary art. 2008 promises to be a full, inspiring and unique year for the city. I feel very privileged to be appointed and I am looking forward to being part of it.?
Judy joins Liverpool Biennial at an exciting and challenging time. Justly celebrated as the deliverer of Liverpool’s international festival of contemporary art – the UK’s Biennial - the organisation now operates as a visual arts agency delivering a range of projects (such as Antony Gormley’s Another Place at Crosby Beach) year round. In this way, Liverpool Biennial adds value to the visual arts sector continuously and ensures that future festivals will continue be rooted in Liverpool as a cultural context.
Castles in the Sky
Liverpool Biennial is proud to be part of the first exhibition at Site, a new international art and design space in Liverpool’s Albert Dock. Initiated by Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design. Site will provide a platform for contemporary art and design produced by international as well as local artists, designers, university students and staff to be exhibited in the Dock’s World Heritage waterfront setting.
Castles in the Sky brings together work from past Liverpool Biennials and displays these alongside selected work by students from Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design. The exhibition received 4000 visitors in it's first week of opening, and is set to be a major space in Liverpool's growing visual arts scene.
By collecting a small but significant set of art works that have already impacted upon the cultural fabric of Liverpool, and juxtaposing these with a selection of work from current and past students, Castles in the Sky points to the cultural activity of building new ideas, hopes, dreams and futures from the building blocks and foundations of existing ideas, aspirations and imaginings.
Castles in the Sky will include Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa’s inflatable flowers from Liverpool Biennial International 04, a ‘Mobile Cinema’ by All Horizons Club and a series of videos and drawings from LJMU students and the Biennial archive.
Castles in the Sky also marks the start of a new partnership between Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design and Liverpool Biennial in a series of initiatives, collaborations and partnerships that will build towards the opening of Liverpool’s new Art and Design Academy in 2008.
Site, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Albert Dock.
Open Wednesday – Sunday, 10am – 4pm.
For more information please contact Paul Domela, paul@biennial.com
From biennial.com...
MaCAC Schools Project
22/02/07
Liverpool Biennial is collaborating with two schools to develop a model to increase the role that modern and contemporary arts can play in teaching and learning for creativity in schools.
The Modern and Contemporary Arts Consortium (MaCAC) was set up in 2005/6. It is a partnership between Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool and Creative Partnerships Merseyside with the aim of exploring the question: 'By collaborating as cultural organisations with teachers, can we develop a model to increase the use and profile of modern and contemporary arts for teaching and learning for creativity and for cultural enrichment across the curriculum?'
Phase 2 of the action research project has commenced and will reflect the different priorities of the participating arts organisations and schools. Liverpool Biennial is working with Formby High School and Range High School who both wish to continue to develop a programme of professional development for the teachers and arts organisation representatives. The project will feed into current priorities for the schools. For Range High this will be a focus on looking at ways to stimulate pupils to explore their built environment and Formby High will focus on teaching and learning for creativity.
For more information please contact Renae Belton, Community Relations Co-ordinator renae@biennial.com
So the result of the election of 2 artist representatives for the Independents Biennial Board is that Arthur Roberts and Terry Duffy were elected. Congratulations to them and also commiserations, they have many long meetings ahead of them.
Tonight's gathering at the Everyman wasn't too bad, myself and artinliverpool.com were praised a few times which is nice.
I think thanks should go to Peter Hagerty for his work on the Independents own website, it got a bit of criticism but with very little money or time at least it worked ok and artists could upload all their info and images. I know how difficult these seemingly basic things are.
And praise too to Dave Bixter of Dyingfrog for gathering all the info for the catalog 'Totally Free' which was available at the meeting. I don't know how much say he had in the final publication, its certainly not how I would have done it but its better than nothing.
There was a lot of debate, I couldn't hear a lot of it but I think the artists are going to meet again to discuss how they think the Independents should continue into the future. One option was to meet up at the Private View at Cornerstone on Thursday Feb 22nd but I think a proper meeting place would be better to 'thrash it out' as Moira Kenny said.
The board meet again at end of Feb. and in April the results of monitoring, evaluation and recommendations have to be made to the Arts Council and everyone else.
From John Brady - Independents Biennial Facilitator....
In this current period of research and consultation in regard to future ‘options’ for the Independents the Board’s key role is that of a thinktank.
During this thinktank phase the Board has the simplest of structures,i.e. an unincorporated association. Jon Barraclough (at the invitation of John Brady) has agreed to be chair during this period and a handful of non-artist professionals with interest in the Visarts have been invited to join the Board. In doing this we are following expectations expressed at the 060106 meeting of the Independents Future Planning Group and complying with Section [6] MEMBERS of the Independents Constitution.
Some are interested in contributing to a ‘thinktank’ only and will step down in April, others may stay on.
Notwithstanding, all are obliged to step down at the first AGM, though they may stand for election for another term.
Below are posted biographical profiles for each of them. They are independent individuals with full-time careers contributing their personal free-time and energy, without material reward, in the hope they can benefit the Independents cause.
I trust you will welcome them and demonstrate there is a positive context in which we can all progress. Please join them, and the two artist board candidates who will have by then received most of the votes, at an open meeting for Independents at the Everyman Theatre Foyer at 18.00hrs on Monday Feb 12th, 2007.
Jon Barraclough (Chair)
Studied Fine Art Media at Bradford and Graphic Design at Newcastle before working as a photographer in New York and London in the 1980s. Working in the music and film industries for Directors such as Nicolas Roeg and Bernardo Bertolucci, he was a founder member of the Unknown Studio in London and exhibited drawings in group and solo shows there. He began teaching at Newcastle and Liverpool Schools of Art in the early 90s then became Head of School at Liverpool between 1991 and 1996. He now co-directs Nonconform a visual communications consultancy in Liverpool and has exhibited drawings and photography in touring group shows and solo shows in the UK. Nonconform is a publishing and marketing company with particular expertise in the arts and creative industries and consults with Tate Liverpool, Bluecoat, Cornerhouse in Manchester and a varied range of artists both nationally and internationally.
Bryan Biggs
A fine art graduate of Liverpool Polytechnic, Bryan Biggs is Artistic Director of Bluecoat Arts Centre. He has curated numerous exhibitions and events by UK and international artists, most recently Walk On for the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. As well as writing on art and popular culture, he maintains his art practice, mostly drawing, exhibiting in various exhibitions, including Jerwood Drawing Prize 2003 (third prizewinner).
Mary Compton-Rickett
I arrived in Liverpool in the mid 70's from London. I loved the architecture, the cultural endurance of the people and the river, and I still do.
I practice as a Barrister in and around Liverpool. I bought my first painting from a show in the Fylde in the late 70's and have been collecting since then as opportunity and funds allow. My interest is in Contemporary Art, prints, paintings and sculpture, but have also been seduced by 20th century British Wood Engraving, thus breaking my original resolve to buy only the work of living artists, but then, nobody is perfect.
Richard Cooke
Richard Cooke is Professor of Children's Medicine at the University of Liverpool. He works there and at the Liverpool Women's Hospital. A past committee member for the Friends of Tate Liverpool, Richard currently chairs the Arts Committee at the Liverpool Women's Hospital. They commission work, and organise other arts events such as music and solo artist and college exhibitions in the hospital. His son is a recent graduate in fine art and is struggling to make a living as a painter in Edinburgh!
Dr. Rob MacDonald
Teaches at LJMU’s Centre for Architecture, is an independent Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) and, as an architect, is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Rob has sat on various committees for arts and housing co-operatives thus gaining insight into key aspects of financial management and marketing. He leads the St.James Gardens Bridge Project that intends to connect Gambia Terrace and the Anglican Cathedral. As an architect he is especially interested in the problems artists face in finding creative space and offers his professional skills to help facilitate a co-ordinated response to such problems.
Sally Medlyn
Sally moved to Liverpool in 2001 to work on the European Capital of Culture 2008 bid. In the 80s she was Visual Arts Officer / Deputy Director, North West Arts. She helped set up Cornerhouse and Castlefield Gallery, co-founded Artists Newsletter, supported a network of artist-lead studio groups and pioneered funding for environmental art.
In the 90s she set up CBAT, the Cardiff arts regeneration agency, collaborating with artists, architects, and communities on built environment commissions and project managed a £9m art build scheme. She was Board member, Chapter Arts; governor of University of Central Lancashire; on EuroCities Culture Committee; Company Secretary for arts organisations and raised funds from public, private and charitable sectors.
She is now a cultural consultant: work includes the Kurt Schwitters MerzBarn project in Cumbria; NW innovation fund to support creative industries; Public Art Strategy, Bootle; Creative Masterplan, Weavers Triangle, Burnley and feasibility study, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.
The Art Organisation (Gregory Scott Gurner and Robert Howie Smith)
The Art Organisation’s objectives show concern for the regeneration of disused property and the introduction of arts to the community. TAO aim to assist the promotion of our members by providing the opportunity to exhibit and show, use of workshop and rehearsal space, TAO facilities and equipment, and providing access to a network of artists, actors and performers through our website www.theartorganisation.co.uk . TAO members now have access to a variety of active spaces and projects based in Liverpool, London and Nottingham.
TAO volunteer directors are Robert Howie Smith and Gregory Scott Gurner. Both studied at the, then, Cumbria College of Art and Design (Creative Art and Fine Art, respectively) and when they met, discussed the benefits of artists working and supporting each other. This conversation grew to become their unique attitude to the use of dereliction for the promotion of art and artists in the community, and the network of artists working within projects past and present.
Greg currently explores his role as curator for the group, sourcing innovative artwork and artists suited to the meta-conceptual approach to the standard of galleries that The Art Organisation unveil, whilst Rob co-ordinates each new project ensuring that each is structured in its management. Together they develop the progress of each project. Greg is currently based in Liverpool, working closely with TAO properties in their Ropewalks Regeneration Art Project. Rob meanwhile is project managing their latest independent arts centre based in Nottingham. [technical note: TAO is the board member and as such has one vote].
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