Culture Diary w/c 03-02-2014
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Tuesday — LAST DAY: Geoff Brokate @ Cornerhouse Bar (Manchester) — FREE
Cornerhouse Projects present the work of north-west based, Australian-born photographer Geoff Brokate; known for documentary photography international subjects, here he turns his camera on the English landscape, creating a series of mysterious, atmospheric ‘visual poems’. An excuse to go for lunch/after work beers and catch the last day of this beautiful mini-exhibition.
Wednesday — Kraftwerk: Uncovered A Future Past 8pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic — £19.50, £25
Love Kraftwerk? Yes. Love a live orchestra and visual arts? Yes. Then you’re in for a treat. Described as ‘A nostalgic vision of a ‘future’ now passed, and a modern reworking of a lost utopian dream’, composer, producer and sound-scapist J. Peter Schwalm re-imagines tracks from a range of Kraftwerk albums – from early acoustic tracks to the now iconic synthesized tunes — alongside visual artists Sophie Clements and Toby Cornish’s new video work, representing Kraftwerk’s vision in the language of an earlier era of avant garde film ‘that wondered in the new aesthetics of technological and industrial innovation’. And there’s even a pre-concert talk at 6pm from Kraftwerk – Music Non Stop’s Dr. Richard Witts, Reader in Music and Sound at Edge Hill University. Excellent.
Thursday – Paul Farley & Michael Symmons Roberts: Edgelands 7.30pm @ the Bluecoat – £5/£3
Soft Estate Event #1: Exploring the Bluecoat’s current exhibition, award-winning north-west poets Farley and Symmons read from their new book Edgelands, described as ‘a masterpiece of its kind… A beautifully conceived work of exploration by two emissaries to the wilderness who do the wasteland proud’ (John Burnside, The Times). Expect the poets’ views on ‘non-places’, how the book took shape through collaboration, and art in the margins.
Friday – Dallas Buyers Club @ FACT — ticket prices vary
Tipped for an Oscar, Matthew McConaughey continues his transformation from rom-com makeweight to serious actor as Ron Woodroof, a hard-living Texan rodeo cowboy/electrician who is diagnosed as HIV positive. Initially refusing to accept the doctors’ prognosis, Ron discovers that HIV treatments in the US are hard to come by; his determination sees a search abroad for experimental treatments and eventually turning into a smuggler of highly sought-after alternative medicines. Jared Leto stars as his trans accomplice.
Saturday – Edgelands Walk 12-2.30pm @ Birkenhead North Merseyrail Station (Wirral) – FREE (booking essential)
Soft Estate Event #2: Get out of the house with historian and writer Colin Dilnot as your guide through Wirral’s ‘Soft Estate’ — hidden wilderness and neglected places between town and country. Trekking across motorway, retail park, canal, recycling plant, rubbish tip, railway sidings, several bridges and wastelands, expect a real ‘edgelands’ experience (sturdy shoes and warm/waterproof clothing recommended). Read our essay on J.G. Ballard and the Soft Estate here.
HIS HEAD Symposium 3-6pm @ Gasworks (London) — FREE (booking recommended)
To celebrate Gasworks’ latest exhibition Late Barbarians, artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen leads a symposium on the divergent connotations of the male human head. With contributions from Niels Henriksen, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, and Thomas Boutoux, a founding member of castillo/corrales in Paris, expect to learn about radical archaeology, medieval stone carving, French political anthropology and the theory of the “headless leader”…
Martin Creed and Band 10pm @ The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall (London) — FREE
As part of the Turner Prize winner’s new Hayward exhibition What’s the point of it? (one of our Unmissable Exhibitions of 2014), the affable Martin Creed performs ’an evening of catchy and humorous songs’ (whatever that means) from his new album Mind Trap. Good fun.
Sunday — LAST DAY: Out of Ice @ University of Westminster (London) — FREE
Another of our Unmissable Exhibitions of 2014, by one of the most significant artists of her generation, Scottish environmental artist Elizabeth Ogilvie presents a vast and immersive installation portraying “the psychological, physical and poetic dimensions of ice and water.” See our full interview here.
LAST DAY: Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See @ Serpentine Sackler Gallery (London) — FREE
Surreal, nightmarish, twisted… will ‘enfants terrible’ Jake and Dinos Chapman ever grow up? We hope not. Morality, the history of art and consumer culture loom large here in their latest exhibition, featuring taxidermy, Ronald McDonald, Nazis and Daniel Craig as a gorilla. Worth a visit to also admire the Zaha Hadid-designed gallery space.
