From September 14 to November 24 Liverpool Biennial 2002 brings together artists from around the world in a celebration of fresh, innovative and engaging practices in visual culture. Practices that encourage excellence, risk, creativity, diversity, participation and debate. Sunday 22 September, 2pm: The Golden Dolphin, Ritualistic Sunday Afternoon Concert, Performance Installation, Fantasia Cruises Jetty, Albert Dock.
>From September 14 to November 24 Liverpool Biennial 2002 brings together
artists from around the world in a celebration of fresh, innovative and
engaging practices in visual culture. Practices that encourage excellence,
risk, creativity, diversity, participation and debate.
Liverpool is the only city in the UK to host a Biennial of contemporary visual
art. Started in 1999, this second Biennial was delayed to 2002 in order to
take full advantage of the opening of the brand new FACT centre and the newly
refurbished Walker Art Gallery, The Walker.
Liverpool Biennial is founded on a unique model of partnership between Tate
Liverpool, FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Bluecoat Arts
Centre, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside and New Contemporaries.
Liverpool Biennial 2002 presents five programmes -
International 2002
John Moores Exhibition of Contemporary Painting
Independent 2002
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2002
Events 2002
Liverpool Biennial 2002 supports Liverpool's European Capital of Culture 2008
bid.
The International 2002 explores the city as a cultural context, proposing a
connection between art of internationally recognised quality and a particular
place. Around eighty percent of the artworks have been specially commissioned
or completed for the exhibition. The curators invite the viewer - as they have
the artists - into a dialogue with Liverpool.
Following the curators' view that the city's culture is one of contradiction
and struggle, the International 2002 suggests approaches to the contemporary
urban environment through aspiration, humour and celebration in the face of
difficulty. The curatorial debate informing the selection of works focused on
the human desire for control - and its frustration. The realities of natural
and artificial environments, of political and social institutions, of
misinformation, mischief, and fantasy all frustrate the impulse to control.
Control and passion are intimately connected - creativity itself is a play
between the artist's desire and the irreducibility of material and form,
content and interpretation.
Some of the issues addressed by the artworks are - viral contamination, 'spin'
and the propagation of misinformation; media obsession and celebrity culture;
identity manipulation; fantasy and hedonism; totally designed environments;
privatisation; terrorism and catastrophe anxiety. Interpretative indications
on each artwork are given in the International 2002 guide and elaborated in
the International 2002 catalogue.
Chiho Aoshima
Tatsurou Bashi
Olaf Breuning
Iftikhar Dadi and Elizabeth Dadi
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Juan Fernando Herrán
Christine Hill
Todd James
Clare Langan
Nikki S. Lee
Mark Lewis
Michael Ming Hong Lin
Lot-ek
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Barry McGee
Rémy Markowitsch
N.I.C.J.O.B.
panOptic
Jorge Pardo
Patricia Piccinini
Chloe Piene
Stephen Powers
Jason Rhoades
Fred Tomaselli
Francesco Vezzoli
Dré Wapenaar
Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Hörbelt
Robert Wogan
Sunday 22 September, 2pm
The Golden Dolphin
Ritualistic Sunday Afternoon Concert
Performance Installation
Fantasia Cruises Jetty, Albert Dock
Thursday 26 September, 7.30pm
Soundless Music
Metropolitan Catherdral, Brownlow Hill
Tickets £2 from the Cathedral Book Shop
Composition for live piano and electronics exploring the effects of
infrasound. Tel. 44 (0) 151 707 2109
18-21 September
You are Here
Bluecoat Arts Centre
Admission charges apply to some Your are Here events
You Are Here is a specially commissioned programme of live art conceived as a
dialogue between the selected artists and Guillermo Gomez-Pena's project
Ex-Centris (A Living Diorama of Fetish-ized Others) featured in the
International 2002. Over 4 days British-based 'international artists'
contemplate, contest and critique ideas of cultural difference and hybridity.
Tel. 44 (0) 151 709 5297
Artists include - Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Cai Yuan and JJXi, George
Charkravarthi, Oreet Ashrey, Kira O'Reilly (Hanover Gallery), Stacy Makishi,
Suki Chan, Silke Mansholt and Qasim Shaheen.
On Sunday 22 September Bluecaot Art Gallery will host a showcase for North
West based artists working in live art.
Sunday 22 September
European Car Free Day
Wood Street, Bold Street, Slater Street and Williamson Square will be
transformed by acrobats, music, performance, fire-eaters, stilt walkers,
inflated sculptures and murals created by young people from the region. A
rickshaw taxi service will operate between selected Liverpool Biennial sites.
Tel. 44 (0) 151 330 1253. Visit www.gotravelwise.com
Sunday 22 September, 11am onward
Live Pool Pedal Powered Boat Flotilla
Site-Sight
Starts at William Brown Street
Site-Sight presents an exploration of urban identity following the hidden
course of Liverpool's tidal pool along the road from the old pool to the river
Mersey with fantastical vehicles. Call to participate. Tel. 44 (0)151 233
5604
Sundays 3, 10 and 17 November, 9am - 12pm
Wish You Were Here
Radio Project
Wish You Were Here opens the air to a range of aural explorations of near and
far, isolation and connection by contemporary artists, writers and social
theorists. Tel. 44 (0) 151 707 8090.
Friday 11 October, 9pm-9.40pm
2.64 Seconds
Adelphi Hotel, Lime Street
This show contains sudden loud noise, and strobe lighting
Artist group The Spark Collective examine the state of art through the 'art'
of the state. Featuring video, performance, poetry, dance and telematics.
The Independent
14 September-8 December
The Independent is the manifold exhibitions generated by artists, architects,
film makers and other practitioners who converge for Liverpool Biennial. This
is the counter exploration where the serious meets fun in an unbridled mixing
of the rigorous and the carnavalesque. As well as using existing galleries,
the Independent pervades churches, bars, chippies, garages, markets, disused
buildings and recent developments. A fertile journey with the unexpected, the
challenging and the imaginative.
John Moores 22, exhibition of contemporary painting
14 September - 8 December
The John Moores exhibition of contemporary painting is the UK's most
prestigious painting competition, showcasing some of the finest British-based
artists. Organised by National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, and
supported by the John Moores Exhibition Trust, John Moores 22 is displayed in
the newly refurbished galleries at the Walker - national gallery of the North.
With a first prize of £25,000, the competition continues to attract a great
number of artists practicing across the broad spectrum of painting. The three
judges - artists Fiona Rae and Jenny Saville along with artist/writer Matthew
Collings judge each painting on its own merits without being given the name of
the artist.
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2002
14 September - 27 October
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2002 is launched at the independent artist-run
space, STATIC.
New Contemporaries is the annual exhibition of work by students and recent
graduates selected from fine art colleges throughout the UK. First established
in 1949, New Contemporaries is recognised for supporting new work and
generating critical debate in the visual arts and for providing valuable
support for artists at the start of their professional careers. By its very
nature the exhibition is always fresh, lively and experimental.
This year, selectors; artists Graham Gussin, Sarah Lucas and filmmaker Patrick
Keiller carefully considered the 1200 applications received from art schools
across the UK during a two-stage process.