Curators
Raimundas Malašauskas
Francesco Manacorda
Dominic Willsdon
Rosie Cooper
Polly Brannan
Francesca Bertolotti
Ying Tan
Joasia Krysa
Sandeep Parmar
Steven Cairns
Dates
Statement
Liverpool Biennial presents a free festival of newly commissioned contemporary art from around the world. Liverpool Biennial 2016 takes place from 9 July until 16 October.
Artists
Biennial Exhibitions
Liverpool’s former ABC Cinema is a Grade II listed building in the Art Deco style that first opened its doors to the public in 1931. For Liverpool Biennial 2016, it hosts works by a number of artists, including Samson Kambalu, Fabien Giraud and Raphaël Siboni, and Marcos Lutyens.
Cains Brewery
For Liverpool Biennial 2016, the classic late Victorian former brewery on Stanhope Street provides the setting for new and existing works by more than 15 international artists, presented within Andreas Angelidakis's giant structure Collider.
The Oratory
For Liverpool Biennial 2016, a number of artists present work in The Oratory, built in 1829 by John Foster, one of the Greek Revivalists who shaped Liverpool’s neoclassical cityscape.
Blade Factory
For Liverpool Biennial 2016 Mark Leckey presents Dream English Kid, a film the artist assembled using archival material from television shows, advertisements and music, to recreate a record of all the significant events in his life from the 1970s until the 1990s.
Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool has transformed its first floor galleries into Ancient Greece for Liverpool Biennial 2016. After walking through a portal, visitors encounter classical sculptures from the collection of National Museums Liverpool, alongside newly commissioned artworks.
FACT
On display at FACT for Liverpool Biennial 2016 is an exhibition of works by Lucy Beech, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Yin-Ju Chen.
Open Eye Gallery
Open Eye Gallery’s exhibition as part of Liverpool Biennial 2016 has a particular focus on the Children’s and Flashback episodes and features artists Koki Tanaka, Fabien Giraud and Raphael Siboni, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian.
Bluecoat
At Bluecoat, Dennis McNulty presents a data-driven installation as part of the Software episode for Liverpool Biennial 2016.
LJMU Exhibition Research Lab
As part of the Software episode, Suzanne Treister’s HFT The Gardener is exhibited for the first time in the UK by Liverpool John Moores University’s Exhibition Research Lab (ERL). Comprising 174 works, the exhibition features artworks created by the fictional character Hillel Fischer Traumberg, a banker turned 'outsider artist’.
George’s Dock Ventilation Tower Plaza
For Liverpool Biennial 2016, Betty Woodman created a large-scale public artwork, a bronze fountain, which is part of the Ancient Greece episode. Woodman's work refers to classical imagery and architectural decoration.
Liverpool ONE
For Liverpool Biennial 2016, Mariana Castillo Deball presents To-day 9th of July 2016, a large-scale infinite staircase built for a character who can jump across the same date in different years throughout history.
Derby Square
Opposite Liverpool’s law courts, Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Hummingbird Clock, a tree of binoculars resembling CCTV cameras, keeps watch over the Town Hall’s clock. The Hummingbird Clock is a new kind of public time piece that exists physically and online.
Exchange Flags
Part of the Monuments from the Future episode, Sahej Rahal’s sculptures imagine artefacts from science fiction and popular culture thousands of years into the future, fossilised.
Toxteth Reservoir
Inside the cavernous Toxteth Reservoir, Rita McBride presents a large-scale installation that represents an opening between real and fictional worlds. It is a wormhole created with laser-beams, in the form of a hyperbola – a smooth symmetrical curve with two branches, produced by the section of a conical surface.
143 Granby Street
As part of the Monuments from the Future episode, Arseny Zhilyaev presents The Last Planet Parade – a particular constellation of planets that only appears during the very last days in the life of Earth.
Rosebery Street
Alisa Baremboym’s sculpture is part of the Monuments from the Future episode. It is made from the same type of perforated sheet metal used to shutter the doors and windows of empty terraced houses in the area.
Rhiwlas Street
For Liverpool Biennial 2016, Lara Faveretto has made a huge granite boulder, which passers-by can drop money into it through a slot.
Mr Chilli Restaurant
For the Chinatown episode of Liverpool Biennial 2016, Elena Narbutaite presents a series of images of tiger and leopard-print swimsuits for interspecies transformation.
Hondo Chinese Supermarket
Works by Liverpool Biennial 2016 artists Ian Cheng and Lu Pingyuan are presented at Hondo Chinese Supermarket as part of the Chinatown episode.
Throughout the City
Flyposted throughout the city are works by Liverpool Biennial 2016 artists Villa Design Group, Koenraad Dedobbeleer and Elena Narbutaite, as part of the Chinatown episode.
Arriva City Buses
Three double-decker buses have been transformed by artists and children in a major new commission by Liverpool Biennial and Arriva North West. The buses can be seen driving on routes through the City Centre, South Liverpool, North Liverpool and the Wirral.
Online
The Software episode of Liverpool Biennial 2016 points towards a broader understanding of technology beyond its practical application. Scripts that run through the Biennial generate unexpected content and behaviour, creating parallel understandings of art and life.
India Buildings
Part of India Buildings has been transformed into a ‘green room’ for the 10 Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists to reflect, explore, collaborate and develop their practice.
Master Chef Restaurant
Ana Jotta’s ‘background’ paintings, titled No No Sir!, were painted for the Liverpool Biennial 2016 Chinatown episode with Master Chef Restaurant in mind.
Epic Hotel
Lu Pingyuan has written a series of stories that can be encountered across episodes, one of which can be seen painted on the side of the Epic Hotel as part of the Monuments from the Future episode.
Performance
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016
John Moores Painting Prize 2016
Biennial Fringe
A wide range of exhibitions, performances and events are presented concurrently with Liverpool Biennial 2016. Independent screenings, gigs, performances, symposiums, mini-festivals and happenings are hosted by individuals, collectives and artist-led spaces throughout the city.
Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art
Different Trains: A Film by Bill Morrison
Koo Jeong A x Wheelscape: Evertro
Evertro, designed by artist Koo Jeong A in association with Wheelscape Skateparks, is the UK's first glow-in-the-dark wheels park and a permanent interactive sculpture for Liverpool's Everton Park.
Associate Artists
The Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists Programme was a major three-year initiative by Liverpool Biennial, in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI) and CACTUS, which supported artists based in the North of England to develop their careers internationally.
Assemble / Granby Workshop
Liverpool Biennial has commissioned Assemble to create a new artwork on the occasion of the International Festival for Business 2016 (IFB2016). Granby Workshop, a social enterprise collaboration between the residents of Granby neighbourhood in Toxteth and artists collective Assemble, presents a showcase of their work outside the Exhibition Centre Liverpool during the three-week festival in a new commission.
Raphael Hefti
A new site-specific artwork by Swiss artist Raphael Hefti for Pullman Liverpool, commissioned by AccorHotels and Liverpool Biennial
Dazzle Island
Dazzle Island is a permanent artwork inspired by Sir Peter Blake’s Everybody Razzle Dazzle and created by children from three Liverpool schools in collaboration with award-winning designers Studio Hato.