Culture Diary w/c 28-07-2014
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the arts listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK!
Tuesday — Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) 6pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £9.50/7.50
It’s Winter, 1915, and French sculptor and graphic artist Camille Claudel (played by the astonishing Juliette Binoche) has been confined by her family to an asylum in the South of France. She will never sculpt again. Award-winning director Bruno Dumont’s chronicle of the artist’s reclusive life is told entirely through found letters from Claudel and her brother, poet and diplomat Paul Claudel.
Wednesday — Private View: Window Project/ James Ostrer: Wotsit All About 6-8pm @ Gazelli Art House, London — FREE
Did you seen the very strange and very beautiful jellyfish installation in Toxteth? It was a Gazelli Art House Window Project: providing an artist with complete control over the gallery’s windows for a limited time only, like a public-facing residency. This time, James Ostrer’s freaky portraits take over; a homage to body politics and our increasing worship of sugar.
Business of Dance: Fundraising for Artistic Projects 6-9.30pm @ The Unity Theatre, Liverpool – £8 Dance UK members / £10 non-members
Anyone who has ever tried to write an Arts Council funding application knows: it’s pretty difficult. This useful tips session and panel discussion, led by Sarah Shead, Creative Director of Spin Arts Management, is aimed at self-managed dance artists, company dancers or dance managers, and covers types of funding available (including local funds), how to clarify artistic ideas and pitch to funders, and how to actually write an application.
Thursday — Drinks With… Lynne Tillman 6pm @ the Liverpool Medical Institution — FREE, booking required
Join respected New York author and critic Lynne Tillman tonight for drinks, and to hear about her approaches to writing fiction and arts criticism. In the early 1980s she created a character called Madame Realism, and through her interrogated exhibitions and artists for various publications including Art in America (read an interview with Tillman here). A great opportunity to see a genius at work.
Andrew W.K. 7pm @ East Village Arts Club, Liverpool — £15
PARTY HARD! The hardiest partying New Yorker ever, Andrew W. K., hits Liverpool on Thursday. He of the dirty white t-short and jeans combo. He of the long hair, the bloody face. The head-banding-inducing songs. And the conspiracy theories. Yes, you heard. He once gave us a sweaty hug. That’s all. See here for full tour dates.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Friday — Private View: Axolotl 6-9pm @ Model, Liverpool — FREE
Did you know that the axolotl is an amphibian closely related to the tiger salamander, and that it remains in water for its entire life? Taking this curious-looking creature as inspiration, the second event from new arts space Model ‘explores a sense of things dissolving’, with artists The ARKA Group, Sam Belinfante, Hannah Brown, Adam Clarke, Joe Graham, Patrick Goddard, and Mark Riddington. If their Biennial opening event was anything to go by, expect the unexpected. N.B. Gallery open Wednesday to Sunday 12pm till 6pm or by appointment.
A Night at the Cinema in 1914 @ 6.20pm BFI Southbank / 6pm Dundee Contemporary Arts – £11/9/7
100 years on, this special compilation from the BFI National Archive recreates and celebrates a typical night out in 1914: taking in comedies, dramas, travelogues and newsreels, including a comic short about a ‘face-pulling’ competition, scenes of Allied troops celebrating Christmas, a ‘sensational’ episode of US film serial The Perils of Pauline, and an early sighting of one of cinema’s greatest icons… See here for all further UK screening dates and venues.
Saturday — John Waters Double Bill 6.40pm @ the ICA, London – £18/£14 Concs/£12 ICA Members
A special double bill in honour of Jeffrey Schwarz’s new documentary I AM DIVINE, celebrating the life and career of Harris Glenn Milstead, AKA cult director (and bad taste king) John Waters’ fearless muse, Divine. Expect two Waters’ classics: Pink Flamingos (1972), where Divine fights it out to become the ‘the filthiest person alive’ (including THAT dog-poo-eating scene), and juvenile delinquent crime caper Female Trouble (1974).
Sunday — Radicals & Renegades 2-4pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE, booking recommended
Explore Liverpool’s mavericks and outsiders — from abolitionist William Roscoe, horror writers Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell, to the unflinching contemporary novelists Niall Griffiths and Helen Walsh — on a lively walking tour with local journalist Deborah Mulhearn. Expect a new spin on these familiar streets.
Creatures Of Extinction Exhibition 6-11pm @ The Zanzibar, Liverpool — FREE
Liverpool-based, non-profit screen print collective The Critter Shed show the results of their exhibition callout this Sunday. Calling for artistsic responses to all things prehistoric/endangered/extinct/dead, the selected results will be hand-printed and shown in this mini-showcase. Expect music, live drawing, food and drink and general merriment.