Over the past decade the festival has grown to become the UK’s largest and most widely reviewed art event (the last Biennial drew 400,000 visitors) and its continuing impact has contributed significantly to Liverpool’s being awarded the title of European Capital of Culture 2008.
This year – the Biennial’s tenth anniversary - promises to be the biggest in scale and ambition yet, as the festival’s reputation for pushing the envelope continues with MADE UP – the Biennial’s International exhibition, and a significantly expanded programme of temporary artists’ projects in the public realm.
Over half the exhibitions cited in the MADE UP programme will take place beyond the gallery in public spaces, where the site-specific nature of these pieces (which often appear in unorthodox spaces) are sure to lure people into previously unexplored parts of city in order to encounter the beautiful and the bizarre.
“Liverpool Biennial’s commissions outside the gallery are a powerful way of involving the widest public, and have become one of the international exhibition’s best-loved features," said Lewis Biggs, Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial.
"This year’s bumper crop for MADE UP will be not only surprising and enjoyable, but will inspire further thought about how art can impact on the developing cityscape.”
MADE UP is described as ‘a reaction to the pervasive documentary focus of much contemporary art’, and proposes to ‘highlight the emotional charge within the artistic imagination and our fascination with and need for ‘making things up’.
‘Whether mischievous constructive or iconoclastic’, the International exhibition aims to ‘reflect ‘art’s capacity to transport us, to suspend belief/disbelief and to generate alternative realities.’
Over 30 commissions will focus on ‘narrative, fantasy, myths, lies, prophesies, subversion, spectacle, and the ambiguous territory between the real and unreal.’ Work will be presented at multiple venues: Tate Liverpool, the Bluecoat, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and Open Eye as well as public spaces across the city.
The programme beyond the gallery also includes three exciting large-scale commissions by leading international architects:
Chinese architect, curator and prolific blogger, Ai Weiwei, who was consultant artist on Bejing’s ‘Bird’s Nest Stadium’, is once again inspired by mother nature for his MADE UP project, Web of Light. In a striking piece of metropolitan art, Weiwei will weave a gigantic spider’s web across Liverpool’s city centre square, Exchange Flags. Made out of steel cables and LED lighting, Web Of Light will support a crystal chandelier in the form of a mesmerising giant glass spider.
From Japan, architectural pranksters Atelier Bow Wow are creating an open-air theatre sited on an empty plot whose hoarding is currently covered in flyposters for upcoming gigs. The theatre will transform the site into a music and performance venue inspired as much by its urban landscape as the music. Rockscape marries topography with classical architecture as they transform this urban outpost into a ‘rocky’ amphitheatre.
USA architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro have created a true rus-in-urbe with their reinvention of the tradition of the public park. Arbores Laetae (Joyful Trees) transforms a brownfield site into a park complete with 17 hornbeam trees formally planted in a grid pattern. Visitors enjoying a spot of rural bliss will be surprised to find that three of the trees rotate, ‘transforming the familiar patterns of the natural world into artificial creations’.
Helen Kane chooses her Top Five Biennial Attractions
1. Yoko Ono makes a return visit to the Liverpool Biennial with her participatory exhibition, LIVERPOOL SKYLADDERS. In a work reminiscent of her famous 1966 installation Ceiling Painting that famously bought her to the attention of John Lennon, Ono invites visitors to donate stepladders to her project, which runs in the ruins of St. Luke’s Church.
Over the course of the Biennial a forest of stepladders will grow inside, inviting us all to find space for dreams and the imagination under the open skies. (Sky)ladders, big and small, metal and wooden, new and old, can be delivered to St. Luke’s Church on Monday 15 to Wednesday 17 September between 11am and 5pm; Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 September between 10 am and 6pm.
2. As W.C. Fields once said, “never work with children or animals.” Israeli Guy Ben-Ner breaks this rule for the Biennial by commissioning a fully-trained fox and crow. In a recreation of the Aesop fable The Fox and the Crow, Ben-Ner’s film questions the parameters of both fiction and documentary, and examines the power relationships between the trainer and the trained.
3. Watch out for directions from Otto Karvonen. The Finish artist will distribute humourous and playful instructions around the city in a series of signs which cross personal observations with the formal language of street signage. Based on his interviews with Liverpool residents, Karvonen’s signs are designed to capture different urban realities and interpretations, emphasising the multitude of perspectives from which a city can be viewed.
4. Alison Jackson explores the slippage between fantasy and reality in the contemporary obsession with celebrity culture. Well known for her photographs apparently capturing moments in the private lives of celebrities, her work playfully critiques our readiness to believe, as much as the paparazzi industry which continues to fuel our appetite for celebrity stories.
Visitors to the Biennial should expect to encounter several celebrity art lovers in the city for MADE UP!
5. Anyone who thinks they’re too busy with work, animals or children to enjoy the fruits of the Biennial might like to see the festival a different way with one of the exhibition’s free tailor made tours. Every Friday a 20-minute Bite Size tour will take place at 12.30 to coincide with those precious lunch-breaks. Places don’t need to be booked for the Bite Size tours, which are also free.
More unconventional culture-vultures might like to consider the following One-Off tours:
On Sunday October 5 at 2pm, Sean Hawkridge will give a cycling tour, on Saturday October 11 at 2pm guide Sara-Jayne Parsons will lead a Dog Walking Tour, and at 10am Sunday September 28 Colin Dilks will run a jogging tour.
A Prams and Pushchairs tour is to be confirmed. Places can be booked for £5 commitment donation. One-Off tours must be booked in advance by calling Emma on 0151 709 7444 or by emailing emma@biennial.com
For more information and full programme details for the Liverpool Biennial see www.biennial.com
