Culture Diary w/c 16-06-2014
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Tuesday – Explore Grayson Perry 1pm @ Walker Gallery, Liverpool — FREE
Join curator Pauline Rushton for a tour of Grayson Perry’s touring exhibition The Vanity of Small Differences. These complex and lavish tapestries record a ‘class journey’ of objects, collectibles and artworks encountered by Perry in British homes for his BAFTA award-winning Channel 4 series, All in the Best Possible Taste. The six textile artworks, inspired by Hogarth’s “the modern moral subject”, have a very profound take on current politics, consumerism, ‘good taste’ and modern life in the UK. At Walker Art Gallery until August 2014, then Leeds City Art Gallery 1 August-1 October 2014.
Modern Times (1936)– Festival Of Ideas 2pm @ Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool — FREE
The first of a series of free film screenings as part of the VGM’s Festival of Ideas — examining Hollywood’s representation of the world of business – Charlie Chaplin’s social comedy Modern Times stars his iconic ‘Little Tramp’ as he struggles to survive in the industrialized world. A comment on the Great Depression, expect to find some correlation with our own UK recession.
Wednesday — Science Fiction: New Death Book Club Reads Mockingbird (1980) 5.30pm @ FACT cafe (The Garden by LEAF), Liverpool — FREE
Our LAST pop-up Book Club during FACT’s sci-fi-inspired exhibition, Walter Tevis’ dystopian love story has been apparently somewhat hard to get hold of (cue TDN reader cries of it being out of stock and out on loan). This extraordinary novel, reprinted for Gollancz’s SF Masterworks series about 7 years ago, follows android Robert Spofforth in a world without books, art or culture, or love, or even children. A world where people would rather burn themselves alive than endure. Join us to talk about the relevance of this book over a coffee — all welcome.
Liverpool Art Prize Award Ceremony 6-8pm @ Metal, Liverpool — FREE
Three shortlisted artists are up for the Liverpool Art Prize this year — Brigitte Jurack (sculpture/installation exploring memories of being in place and in time), Tabitha Jussa (socio-political photography) and Jason Thompson (mechanical, botanical and anatomical-inspired painting). The main award of £2000 is up for grabs, as well as People’s Choice Award of £1000, a Metal studio award and a Shanghai residency award. Exhibition continues until Saturday 21 June, open Thursday – Saturday 11am – 5pm.
Thursday — Bert Hardy Talk With Colin Wilkinson 6-7.30pm @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool — FREE (Reserve List Only)
Author of Picture Post in Liverpool (and original founder of Open Eye), Colin Wilkinson looks at the importance of the weekly magazine as a catalyst for British photo-journalism. Hardy – a young working-class boy from London — emerged as one of their key pioneering photographers; documenting in this exhibition Chinese workers’ living conditions through the 1940s (deemed too politically ‘hot’ to be published at the time.
Friday — Work And Play Behind The Iron Curtain 11am-7pm @ GRAD, London — FREE
The Gallery for Russian Arts and Design’s next exhibition puts the changing face of Soviet design under the microscope; examining over 50 key objects that define a period stretching from the 1917 Revolution to Perestroika. Expect to see plenty of colourful plastics — like Nevalyashka Dolls (1958, pictured), the ‘Chaika’ (‘Seagull’) Vacuum Cleaner (1956), the ‘Rigonda-102’ Gramophone Radio (1971) — which mostly hail from the ZIL factory, one of the most prestigious industrial enterprises in Russia.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Saturday — LIV-BCN Festival @ The Kazimier and The Kazimier Garden, Liverpool — £12
A brand spanking new independent festival of Liverpool and Barcelona, this is a colourful celebration of both cities’ music, illustration, food and general creativity. Expect a head to head with Joan Guàrdia (Indie record label and booking agency La Castanya) and Craig G Pennington (Bido Lito! & Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia); live painting by Conrad Roset to music by D duo The Chicken Brothers and Catalonian drinks; plus a cacophony of gigs from Liverpool and Barcalona bands.
Sunday — Sunday Serenade 2.30pm @ St Georges Hall Concert Room — £25
Follow up a day of indie music with a bit of Stravinsky, Strauss, Dvorák and Holberg… ‘Music for strings like you’ve never heard it before’, director and violinist James Clark leads the sublime Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra string players, including Stravinsky’s Concerto in D which was completed in Hollywood in 1946.
