Some good news to end the year on. Visits to England’s museums and galleries have risen by 75% since entry charges were scrapped three years ago. The National Museums Liverpool recorded a 94% rise in visitors. Of course, these figures don’t include all the small independent galleries. artinliverpool.com will be doing its utmost to boost the local figures further and raise public awareness of fine art over the coming years. (end of self-advert)
Monthly Archive for December, 2004
icLiverpool Link
“CULTURE chiefs are warning that there is not enough cash to satisfy public demand for events celebrating Liverpool’s Capital of Culture win.”
No doubt we’ll have many more news items on this theme over the next few years.
Just as the year ends, I’m nostalgic for the summer’s Biennial, a feeling helped along by these photos by someone called Andrew Mason which have been posted at flickr. Mixed within the beer and icecream are some excellent shots of Peter Johansson’s ‘Musical Royale’ or ‘the red house at the Pier Head which plays Abba four hours on end’. It’s quite shocking to see it in context, clashing marvellously with the grey of the Liver Buildings in the background.
For the unintiated, flickr is an online photo sharing and management system. It offers the facility for anyone, bloggers or amateur or professional photographers to share their pictures online in one place with minimum of fuss. Collections are usually organised under user profiles and or collective user groups. The more useful and interesting method is using ‘tags’, keywords which describe whatever’s in the photo. That way if someone wants to see lots of pictures of snowmen, they can search under that tag and a page will appear filled with carrot noses and stone eyes.
One of the most frequently used tags is based on geographic location which is how I found Andrew’s work. As you would imagine, the Liverpool collection features many pictures of tourist sites (lots of Beatles) but offers a unique way of seeing how visitors actually view the city — what they find the most appealing. A user called binarydreams spent some time at St Luke’s Church and gave it marvellously gothic angles. But local people are also presenting their own view of the city. I took some pictures of the snow on Christmas Day then rushed to post them on flickr only to find someone else had been having the same idea.
Although the site is only in its opening stages, it’s already attracted thousands of users and has come to the attention of Google and it’s thought that they will be putting a bid in to buy the company in the new year. As the user base grows, newer applications are developing, with small communities sprouting under tags and groups so that people with a particular interest can share their pictures and knowledge (via message boards and the ability to comment on the pictures). There is already the start of a Liverpool group (spectacular picture of the Williamson Square fountain included). With understandable worries to do with copyright and someone well, stealing the images there still wouldn’t be anything to stop an artist from posting their work here if they didn’t want mess about with coding their own website and I’ve seen professional photographer’s entire portfolios on as well. I would love to see what something which brings together the work of Liverpool artists might look like.
The best way I’ve found to experience all this is via a RSS feed using a news aggregator (I use Bloglines but there are others). That way as new photos are uploaded to flickr they appear in the reader as a steady stream almost like someone showing you their holiday photos. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing, but it’s a chance to see what other people have been up to in the city.
The Gift of Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler
at Liverpool Tate.
Another new exhibition running until May 2005, this celebrates Gustav and Elly Kahnweiler’s gift to Tate of works of art by important modern international artists including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris and André Masson. Although having already been seen in part at Tate Modern this year, the display has been expanded for Tate Liverpool.
Can’t quite make up my mind about Cubism or any ‘ism really. Some I like and some I don’t but the overall effect seemed a bit gloomy. Not keen on Braque’s ‘Billiard Table’ which looks terribley vandalised but I do like his charcoal still lifes. There’s Picassos a plenty but I prefer the Andre Masson works. There’s also a few Henry Moore maquettes.
‘Seeing Is Believing’ at Liverpool Tate.
Seeking sanctuary from the heaving crowds of bargain hunters in the city centre I visited the relatively quiet Tate. I hate the way crowds move so slowly, I’ve always been a fast walker, as a fan of Tolkien I took on the nickname of ‘Strider’ many years ago. I reckon if I’m forced to walk below a certain speed I lose my balance and fall over.
This exhibition is another that’s linked to the City of Faith 2004 theme and is the first at Tate for 10 years to involve local people in the development. An advisory group was formed made up of members from different faiths, their comments are printed below the label for each picture. I found these useful as the relevance to faith is not obvious with all the works. For instance Anish Kapoor’s ‘As If To Celebrate, I Discovered a Mountain Blooming with Red Flowers’ which I really like, was chosen because its colours are reminiscent of Hinduism and the Festival of Holi.
There are some familiar paintings from the Tate Collection here by Barnett Newman, Bridget Riley, Stanley Spencer and Graham Sutherland amongst others and sculptures by Elizabeth Frink.
Indigo Art, based in Liverpool now has an annual art prize. The first winner was Myfanwy Johns.
Daily Post report
Indigo website report and pictures
This was posted from the Arts Council Maillist.
Go Green Month
Liverpool Community College Student Association
Liverpool Community College Student Association is putting together an
event for February which allows students the opportunity to learn about
the different effects we have on the environment.
This event is to be called ‘Go Green Month’ and will consist of a number
of different workshops and activities for students to take part in.
We are looking for artists who can work with students to develop art work
using recycled products and musicians who utilise waste products in some
way and are able to provide workshops.
If you have skills in these areas and would like more information please
contact Alison Cottenham – Enrichment Officer – on 0151 252 3378 by Friday
14th January at the very latest.
Liverpool Central Library until 31st March 2005
After leaving the Walker on Sunday I called into the Central Libraries next door. Isn’t it great that Liverpool libraries are open on Sundays, I can’t quite get used to the idea. If you haven’t been here before its well worth a visit just to see some of the rooms. This exhibition is in the Picton room on the 2nd floor, this is a large round room with a huge domed ceiling, the slightest noise echoes all round the room.
The main item is, of course, the huge volume ‘The Birds of America’. It is printed on very large paper known as double elephant folio. Audubon insisted that all the birds should be illustrated in actual life size, even so some are shown in distorted poses to fit within the frame. Unfortunately you can only see the two pages at which the book is open, its in a closed display case. The pages are turned every Tuesday and Thursday. There are several prints on display around the room and there are smaller books by Audubon and his contemporaries, not just of birds but other natural history too.
The slideshow is interesting partly because of his connections with Liverpool. He was lucky when he arrived from America in 1826 to fall in with the wealthy Rathbone family who invited him to stay at their home in Greenbank. He obtained letters of introduction to many local dignitaries such as William Roscoe and Lord Stanley.
His illustrations weren’t always anatomically perfect and he had an annoying habit of announcing he’d (incorrectly) discovered new species and naming them after his friends (e.g his Stanley Hawk was already known as Cooper’s Hawk). But he was the first to depict birds in their natural environment in realistic poses rather than the stuffed, static profiles people were used to and the paintings are big, brightly coloured and full of energy.
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