Something Beautiful Remains

With less than a month to go, here is the ‘long-awaited’ Spanner in the Workz highlights of the Liverpool Biennial 2018!

The Biennial 2018 celebrates its 10^th programme of what is overall twenty years of arts across the city and region. It also personally marks my fifth Biennial from when I first visited Liverpool as an art student in 2008. It has become a tradition to visit and feel quite sentimental about loyally making the pilgrimage to the north every two years via a series of (increasingly unreliable) trains searching for what new contemporary national and international art in some of Liverpool’s most remarkable buildings, galleries and spaces has in store. There is also a case for the Liverpool bar that sells triple gins for £3, but perhaps the less said of that the better....!

(detail) Mae-ling Lokko's installation 'Hack the Root' 2018

In response to the collective theme, ‘Beautiful World Where Are You?’ artists and audiences are invited ‘to reflect on a world in turmoil’. It sounds serious and whilst I do not question that the world, politically, environmentally, socially and economically is in a tumultuous and uncertain period, I found much of what resonated with me in this year’s Biennial to be conscientiously uplifting and more hopeful or engagingly activist in the face of such challenges. Works such as Mae-ling Lokko’s ‘Hack the Root’, presented at RIBA North Architectural Centre deals with the turmoil of food-waste and unsustainability of materials for building by proposing a creative solution whereby agrowaste-fed mycelium (mushroom) have been cultivated into modular biomaterial building panels. Shown is a video that explains this process alongside the tiles themselves, a growing chamber and prototypes of structures which could be built from this material. I had no idea mushrooms could be used in this way and am excited that work artists are still using science to creatively problem solve and generate new ideas. 

 

(still) Madiha Aijaz 'These Silences Are All The Words' 2017-18

 Equally heartening and possibly my favourite piece from this year’s Biennial is a film at the Open Eye Gallery titled ‘These Silences Are All The Words’ by Madiha Aijaz. Filmed in Karachi, Pakistan, the film documents librarians working in public libraries and their library users as they reflect on the shift of language from Urdu to English. The libraries in this film (and libraries in general) come to symbolise these sort-of barometers for changes in culture, language, need and understanding in our communities and societies; the poetic and literary history of Urdu versus the historical and political complexity of the English language (the legacy of the Raj). Aijaz explains that the books themselves in these libraries, written in Urdu speak of, ‘the struggle for freedom and the formation of Muslim identity in undivided India’ and yet in some ways things have not changed, the library itself is now in conflict with the language of the texts it holds and modernisation of the world and its users today. There is a need to preserve the past whilst making it accessible to those in the future. Though the film itself is not angry in its tone and at only approx. twelve minutes long acts more of a documentary of the reality of these libraries and for the viewer to come to their own conclusions. The shots of the libraries, the light hitting the dusty books are in themselves beautiful! As shelves of books, tomes and texts almost inherently are, surely? I am utterly bias, having worked in a library for the best part of nine months, but am curiously fascinated by the foreign yet-familiarity of the libraries in this film and humbled by the reverence with which they are spoken of, “When I enter the library, I leave my ego and shoes at the door.” It makes me speculate the idea of sacredness in today’s society, what is sacred? Is it important? Is religion sacred anymore, is it knowledge; perhaps a combination of both/neither? Is sacredness subjective and does that led to decline in the value that a shared sense of sacredness brings to uniting people. Where do public places, such as libraries still fit in being custodians of values, freedom of speech and community?

 

Francis Alys, 'Outskirts of Mosul' 2016 - part of 'Age Piece' 2018

 One of the best venues for art has to be the Victoria Gallery & Museum where Francis Alӱs’ small but beautiful postcard paintings from 1980s to the present are exhibited under the title ‘Age Piece’. They have an immediate painterly quality but are compositionally highly cinematic, painted in plein air in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq whilst looking for new locations for his film projects. Apart from the John Moores Painting Prize, which is also on during the Biennial at the Walker Gallery, there is a famine of painting throughout the Biennial as a whole. These little works really shine as being amongst the most honest, intimate and captivating paintings throughout. The gallery itself is also an eclectically stunning location to house these paintings amongst dentistry tools, plastic botanical plant models, fossils and taxidermy all housed in a spectacularly tiled Victorian red brick building. Other Biennial highlights here include Taus Makhacheva’s fun, mesmerizing and death-defying film, ‘Tightrope’ which I first came across last year at the Venice Biennial; http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.com/2017/07/viva-venezia.html 

 

Botanical Plant models at the Victoria Gallery & Museum

 If viewing art in unusual spaces and contexts is for you then the Biennial almost always delivers in showing art in a host of disused and/or period buildings (many of them over the years have since been developed, for better or worse). For 2018 St George’s Hall situated directly outside Liverpool Lime Street Station is a Grade 1 listed building dated back to 1854 and is used for concert halls and law courts; inside several films are shown within the underground spaces, prison cells and courtroom. The context for these films by Joyce Wieland, Inci Eviner, Aslan Gaisumov, Lamia Joreige, Brian Jungen & Dunane Linklater and Naeem Mohaiemen creates a heightened sense of awareness that is different to the more familiar context of the gallery and leads me to pay more attention than I perhaps normally would. It is not everyday you see a three-screened film in a courtroom or boat sailing across a prison cell wall....! Across the Biennial there are more films being shown than there are hours in the day, which is a bit disappointing if you are limited in time. The Playhouse Theatre in the heart of the city centre features yet more films, Reetu Sattar’s ‘Harano Sur’ (Lost Tune) documents a performance in Bangladesh in which people played one of seven sustained notes on the harmonium. It is worth hearing as much (if not more) as it is worth seeing.

 

St George's Hall Steps from the Courtroom down to the prison cells

Possibly the most talked about piece from this year’s Biennial is Banu Cennetoğlu’s list tracing the information of more than 34,000 refugees and migrants who have lost their lives within or on the borders of Europe since 1993; displayed in the Biennial on billboards along Great George Street. A work that has been vandalised, restored and eventually left in its now semi-vandalised appearance (as a statement of the political unease that this work generated). The list compiled by UNITED for Intercultural Action has been facilitated by Banu who translated the list and placed it in public spaces such as billboards and newspapers. It is a powerful, if depressing (made slightly even more depressing work for being sabotaged) graphic reminder of the scale of lives lost. Ironically for those who sought to destroy this work it has actually gained more poignancy in the traces of marks made by the glue that once held these posters the billboard than in the physical presence of the names themselves. The glue marks becoming a tally of the violent act in attempting to remove them, the resilience of human endurance and consequence that these names, these people cannot be forgotten; that actions and history have consequence.

Glue residue left from the 'destruction' of  Banu Cennetoglu's list of Refugee names

There is far more to see besides what I have mentioned here and these are my own personal highlights. I feel that out of all the apparent doom and gloom of cuts within art education, austerity, Brexit and Trump that the Biennial has continued to look outwards to what is happening within the arts globally, showing work at a time when it is all too easy to be pessimistic, that there is more that unites us than divides us. Art that calls for more action, more participation through questioning, thinking, speaking/listening, engaging, creating, building, planting and maybe even blogging! Nothing is not an option.

Liverpool Biennial 2018, can be seen at selected venues across the city until October 28^th. For more information visit: http://www.biennial.com/2018

Yello from Liverpool

This year’s Liverpool Biennial is very yellow and no, not yellow submarine yellow, just yellow everywhere yellow! From the yellow themed marketing and banners adorning the city, a yellow and white themed exhibition space curated and designed by French architect Claude Parent at the Tate Liverpool, the yellow fabric canopy and beige walls in an exhibition of Whistler’s etchings at the Bluecoat (don’t let the gallery name fool you, it’s currently yellow inside!), the yellow painted decaying walls of the former Blind School on Hardman Street to the Biennial name itself, ‘A needle walks into a haystack’ (haystacks being yellow). Is it intentional, is it a conspiracy or is it all a dream.... maybe I’ve got some weird yellow synaesthesia, jaundice or yellow fever. Who knows?

Now in its eighth year the 2014 Liverpool Biennial has a central exhibition curated by Mai Abu ElDahab and Anthony Huberman and four solo shows taking place over sixteen weeks, presenting work from national and international artists past and present in museums, galleries and spaces across the city. All of it is free to visitors and runs alongside its partner exhibitions, the John Moores painting prize and Bloomberg New Contemporaries (from Sept 20^th). 2014 marks my fifth Liverpool Biennial, it is a date on the art calendar that I look forward to every two years and I absolutely love it!

Judith Hopf 'Flock of Sheep' (2013) at 'Needle walks into a haystack'

You will be forgiven for being distracted by the walls, ceiling, doors and floor around the painting.

 

The highlight of the Liverpool Biennial’s for me is the opportunity to explore the city itself. The exhibitions are temporary and (aside from the museum/gallery venues) are often shown in abandoned, decaying and disused buildings making no two Biennials the same. Previous venues have included an old postal sorting office, pubs, factories, theatres, offices, churches and shops. Equipped with a Biennial map finding these places and then navigating their many staircases, halls, dimly-lit walkways, basements and rooms can often feel more like urban exploration than an art exhibition. This is a double-edged sword for Liverpool itself as it brings in tourism but also highlights some of the neglect of its inner city buildings in stark contrast to the multi-million pound shopping district.  The Biennial showcases these spaces, gives them new use and new life, forcing these disused spaces not to go ignored. These spaces are consequently later turned into flats, halls of residence or offices (it’s debatable whether this is in fact a good thing or not). Overall it does act as a positive case study for urban renewal generated by art and artists unlocking the potential/opening-up these disused, neglected spaces. If they could be invested in to preserve the history and character of these buildings, in my opinion, would be better under artist's use rather than demolishing in order to rebuild.

I admit that I find the architecture, mouldy walls, peeling paint, period features and loose parquet floorboards somewhat of a more captivating distraction from looking at the art itself. The old Blind School and former Trades Union Centre in this year’s Biennial is a particular example of this. Exhibiting the work of seventeen artists I often found their work over shadowed by the effortlessness beauty present in the surfaces of the walls created by the natural wear, decay and use over many years (enviable to anyone who has ever tried recreate them). The building itself is a rabbit warren of rooms, corridors and staircases that all somehow intersect and fold back on each other without you even noticing (disappointingly this building is due to become a block of flats so see it whilst you can). Still, I wouldn’t be there if not for the art and neither would I linger so long looking at the work if not for viewing it in the context of this remarkable space.

One of several staircases at the Blind School in Liverpool

I’m a bit sceptical at the blurb, ‘a needle walks into a haystack is an exhibition about our habits, habitats, and the objects, images, relationships and activities that constitute our immediate surroundings. It is about effecting larger questions facing contemporary life and art, from an intimate and tangible scale that’s within everyday reach.’ Or in other words, ‘this exhibition could be about anything’ instead of trying to be more specific, I'd say they've left it very broad, open and up to interpretation.  The problem with this is that when an exhibition tries to be all encompassing it actually ends up being about nothing and is difficult to grasp its overall theme/meaning. Researching after seeing the exhibition it is supposedly a show about 'our everyday routines and how they can become disrupted', but this was sort of lost on me at the time. If you can cast that worry aside you’ll still find lots of interesting works such as Paul Watchler's amusing and honest animation of a pair of crutches sliding through the mud as it complains, lost in an internal monologue of misery and Judith Hopf's sculptures of bronze tree branches, coiled rope and sheep that encroach and interact within the building well animating the space rather than being placed within it; Rana Hamadeh's powerful, interactive and theatrical installation of props and sound reinterpreting a case study of the Shiite ritual of Ashura is intense and challenging to experience. There are sadly too many not so inspiring paintings in the exhibition, but I won't dwell on those.

William Leavitt 'Arctic Earth' (2014) at 'Needle walks into a haystack'

Peter Watchler's animation of a pair of crutches sliding across a muddy terrain whilst ranting in a fit of despair at 'Needle walks into a haystack'

Marc Bauer 'in June Bauer decided to move his studio into a dingy hotel in Liverpool, where he thought he could potentially become part of the story of the place, Marc draws and re-draws the images he finds in his own personal materials.' These small drawings were fairly linear in their meaning, but I was interested by what Bauer had to say about the process and 'need' to draw which was displayed on the wall alongside these images, "I draw and I forget everything. I have to do it everyday, and this routine brings me freedom. I can create a world on the sheet of paper, something to submerge myself in. I had an epiphany about which direction to follow, but in a way it's too late; I can only follow the logic of the drawing. There is a thin line I have to preserve, I don't know where it leads me."

There are still more surprises that this exhibition and building have to offer that I have refrained from showing in this post, as discovering them for yourself is really rewarding and exciting.

Elsewhere the Tate Liverpool has an exhibition featuring the work from artists like, Naum Gabo, Edward Wadsworth and Francis Picabia in a unique environment designed by Claude Parent. Taking the form of ramps, balconies, walkways and netting the architect attempts to create new awareness in how we view and engage with individual artworks in response to their surroundings. The whole thing looks like a Naum Gabo sculpture crossed with a futuristic skate park, the ideas of which are reflected in the choice of artists presented within this space. More incredible architectural shapes can be found in the newly opened Liverpool Central Library which is a stunning, curved modern space with an exhibition from Japanese artist in residence, Aiko Miyanaga. Miyanaga has taken the reading room as her site to install several pieces of work in the form of resin and napthalene casts of books, keys and tonks (little square metal plates used to hold library shelves) which are presented in piles or hiding in drawers. All a bit cliché for my liking, but I was glad to visit the library itself.

Aiko Miyanaga at Liverpool Central Library

Carlos Cruiz-Diez 'Dazzle Ship' (2014) Canning Graving Dock

On the whole, I thought this year’s Biennial was much smaller than previous years with far fewer outdoor commissions and events. I wonder if this is an affect from the arts cuts nationally? Interestingly the work in the Biennial doesn't really comment on its own economic situation or respond to the devastating cuts directly. This makes the overall tone of the Biennial (apart from being ‘yellow’) quite cautious, often avoiding the politics of the present by referring to the past as a way of presenting ‘postmodern’ ideas or thinking; the main outdoor commission being Carlos Cruz-Diez’s Dazzle ship, a homage to Norman Wilkinson and Edward Wadsworth’s camouflage technique; an exhibition of the American born painter, James McNeill Whistler’s work shown because he was an artist who challenged the art community, was greatly concerned with how his art was received and considered the entire exhibition space as an environment not limited to the work itself and two retrospectives of  Belgium documentary filmmaker , Jef Cornelis and painter/poet Adrian Henri, active in the pop art, music and performance scene in Liverpool during the 60s and 70s. These artists are being shown as their ideas and ways of working are relevant to today’s ways of working. I stress that these are good exhibitions, Whistler’s etchings of Venice and Adrian Henri’s Raushenberg-inspired combine paintings are worth seeing alone but in terms of what they bring to the Biennial as a whole feels too much a representing of old ideas. Fine in moderation, but there is a lot of it in this Biennial. The most challenging and interesting work to be found is in the Old Blind School group exhibition (and potentially the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, but it isn’t open yet), whereas in previous Biennials there was much more on offer in the way of spectacle, ambition, imagination and a looking to the present and future rather than the past. This year’s Biennial is good but lacking in bite.

Rodrigo Moynihan 'The Shelf, Objects and Shadows -Front View' (1982-3) at Tate Liverpool
What can say, I like this painting. It reminds me of a more precise Morandi, Andre Derain or Chardin. Part of the exhibition at the Tate that explores themes of domesticity, routine and the domestic environment. I should have loved this exhibition but it was all a bit 'same old', featuring Richard Artschwager, Kurt Schwitters, Richard Wentworth, Susan Hiller and others as well as one too many Patrick Caulfield's even for my liking. The greatest surprise in this exhibition was a series of woven rugs by Francis Bacon when he was an interior designer, I honestly never knew!  

Other Liverpool highlights include this, an exhibition of artist, Rutherford Chang's 1000 first pressings of The Beatles vinyl White Album. The exhibition located in a former record store (right next door and part of FACT) was an exciting surprise that reaffirmed why the city itself is always the highlight of the Biennial. Every album subtly different, its cover described by the artist, as 'the perfect canvas' marked with the use, coffee stains and wear from its previous owner(s) since its release in 1968. Some have been drawn or painted on, others including lyrics, dedications and more. This is a great piece of social history for what is an iconic album both musically and for its design. I really enjoyed looking at them.  http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/we-buy-white-albums.aspx

Critics have accused the Biennial as being bleak, understandable if you look at the exhibition of photographs documenting protests at the Venice Biennale in 1968 at Open Eye Gallery and Sharon Lockhart’s films shown at FACT, documenting the play of several children in Poland, oblivious to the dilapidated city/poverty they find themselves in. However, there is much humour and wit to be had too, largely in the group show at the Blind School building. It is still relevant and great fun to explore with some inspiring work on show. My criticism is that as in previous years the Biennial could afford to be bigger, braver,  more challenging and well, just a whole lot less yella!

The Liverpool Biennial 2014 is on until 26th October

http://www.biennial.com/