Liverpool Biennial Announces Autumn Programme
Isabel Lewis will host an 'occasion' in Sefton Park Palm House in October
Liverpool Biennial has announced a programme of activity throughout September and October including a performative project, The Companion, the announcement of the John Moores Painting Prize winner and the opening of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014.
The Companion
Liverpool Biennial is pleased to announce a performative project, taking place in spaces across the city from Friday 19 - Sunday 21 September. The Companion, in collaboration with artist and writer Angie Keefer, will form part of Biennial’s overall exhibition reflecting on how artists disrupt the realms of habits and habitats, reconfiguring the objects, images, representations and activities that constitute their immediate surroundings.
The Companion performance weekend takes place at venues across the city including the Liverpool Philharmonic Dining Rooms, Merseyside Dance Initiative, The Kazimier and The Black-E. Performances include; Jeremiah Day’s first presentation of a larger project tracing the legacy of the American Anti-Imperialist League, and its failure; Angie Keefer and James English Leary’s durational performance The Screens, which will produce segments of Jean Genet's play of the same name; dancers and musicians stage works conceived by Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus; and musical recitals including an evening of live music performances at The Kazimier.
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014
Saturday 20 September – Sunday 26 October
World Museum, Free
Bloomberg New Contemporaries has been an integral part of Liverpool Biennial since 1999 and under the new directorship of Kirsty Ogg, this year marks Bloomberg New Contemporaries’ 65th anniversary. As the leading UK organisation for supporting emergent art practice from British art schools, New Contemporaries has consistently provided a critical platform for final year undergraduates, postgraduates and artists one year out of postgraduate study, primarily by means of an annual touring exhibition.
Participants were announced in May and as part of Liverpool Biennial 2014, the resulting national touring exhibition opens at the World Museum, National Museums Liverpool, 20 September 2014, offering a compelling picture of contemporary practice with the work of 55 artists on display.
John Moores Painting Prize
Saturday 5 July - Sunday 30 November
Walker Art Gallery, Free
The first-prize winner of the UK’s best-known and longest-running painting competition will be announced on 19 September 2014 at the Walker Art Gallery.
50 artists were originally selected from more than 2,500 entrants with the shortlist of five prize winners announced on 5 July 2014; Rae Hicks, Juliette Losq, Mandy Payne, Alessandro Raho and Rose Wylie, from which one overall winner will be selected.
The 2014 judges are Tim Marlow, Director of Artistic Programmes at the Royal Academy and artists Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Zeng Fanzhi, Chantal Joffe and Tom Benson.
Isabel Lewis
Tuesday 30 September, 7-10pm
Sefton Park Palm House
Free, booking required
This September, Liverpool Biennial welcomes artist Isabel Lewis who will host a unique event in the Palm House, Sefton Park. Continuing the theme of her current work, which takes the form of hosted "occasions" that are concerned with composition in the space of social encounter, Lewis’ event will take the form of a party, at which Isabel will present her own work. Within the occasion hospitable conditions are generated for the mixing of modes from the sensual to the discursive. Similar perhaps to the ancient Greek symposium, or "drinking party", the occasion is a celebratory meeting of things, people, plants, music, smells and dances.
An Occasion Hosted by Isabel Lewis is a Frieze Project co-commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, ICA and Frieze. Isabel Lewis will be hosting a series of occasions as part of Frieze Projects in London from 14-17 October 2014.
Key events for October include:
Sharon Lockhart Film Programme:
Bill Douglas Trilogy
Wednesday 8 October, 6.30pm
FACT
£8 / £7 conc, book tickets
Bill Douglas's reputation as a film director rests largely on three films he made in the 1970s, the total running length of which is only just over three hours. My Childhood / My Ain Folk / My Way Home.
International Biennial Association Summit
Saturday 11 October, 10am-4pm
the Bluecoat
Free, booking required
The Summit brings international representatives of the IBA together with professionals in the UK that organise periodic and Biennial festivals. Together they explore a range of Biennial models in order to broaden knowledge of international practice in the UK.
Sharon Lockhart World Premiere
Friday 17 October, 6.30pm
FACT
£6 / £5 conc
Join Sharon Lockhart herself and be the first to see her new film, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and FACT. In making this film, Lockhart returned to Poland to work with Milena and a group of twelve adolescent girls from the Youth Center for Sociotherapy, an orphanage in the town of Rudzienko. On a nearby farm, through a series of workshops led by educator and philosopher Bartosz Przyby?-O?owski, the group developed exercises and activities designed to empower the authority of their own voice and perspective on the world.
Drinks With… Ben Highmore
Thursday 23 October, 6.30pm
Liverpool Medical Institution
Free, booking required
Drinks With… is a series of commissioned presentations by noted speakers, asking pertinent questions in response to the key curatorial concerns of A Needle Walks into a Haystack.
For more events throughout Liverpool Biennial 2014, click here.
