Culture Diary w/c 24-11-2014
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Tuesday — Hockney: Live from LA 7pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £10/8
“When I’m working, I feel I’m 30, like Picasso.” So said Hockney to The Observer recently; here filmmaker Randall Wright offers a unique view into the 77 year old artist’s life and career, including his upbringing in Bradford, his practice (he still works in the studio seven days a week), and his seemingly endless popularity. Read our take on Hockney here.
Wednesday — Private View: Pipilotti Rist: Worry Will Vanish 6-8pm @ Hauser & Wirth, London — FREE
Take off your shoes and venture beyond the denim curtain… video artist Rist’s new exhibition invites us to lie down and experience the universe as a ‘kaleidoscopic reimagining of reality’. It’s a familiar and intimate experience for her fans (remember Gravity Be My Friend at FACT 2008?); expect an immersive, swirling show of close-up imagery from nature and the human body viewed from the comfort of floor-based duvets and cushions.
10 Years of Mellowtone 6pm @ Leaf, Liverpool — FREE (RSVP hello@mellowtone.info)
What better way to celebrate Mellowtone’s 10th birthday (congrats guys!) than with acoustic sessions from a bunch of friends: expect the ‘spellbindingly magnificent’ (The Fly) Ragz Nordset, Paul Straws , Kaya Herstad Carney, Dave O’Grady , Red Sails, Nick Ellis and Silent Sleep, plus rare soul/afrobeat/reggae from the Beaten Tracks DJs.
Thursday – Ossian Ward On Lizzie Fitch And Ryan Trecartin 7pm @ Zabludowicz Collection, London — FREE (booking recommended)
Hear contemporary art writer and Head of Content at Lisson Gallery Ossian Ward as he discusses the stars of ZC’s new Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin exhibition. Drawing on his experiences and ideas — explored in new book Ways of Looking: How to Experience Contemporary Art (published by Laurence King) — Ward will comment on Fitch and Trecartin’s use of language and scripting as a means of collaboration. Drinks from 6.30pm.
Holly Baxter In Conversation 7.30pm @ Cornerstone Festival, Liverpool — £10/7 (free to Liverpool Hope students)
Co-editor of a magazine where “you’ll find an article about how David Lynch has a metaphorical boner for dead women next to funny things our mums have said” (The Vagenda), the excellent Holly Baxter comes to Liverpool Hope University this Thursday to host a timely discussion about the representation of women in the media, making fun of sexist stereotypes, and generally how to kick-ass as both a woman and a writer. See our highlights for the whole festival here.
Friday — Autumn Triple Threat 6pm @ The Royal Standard, Liverpool — FREE
Chasing away the dark nights with performance, jerk chicken, music and general merry-making, invited artists present new work at TRS this week, including: The NewBridge Project (Newcastle) with work made in situ during a week-long residency; Clawson & Ward (Bristol) launch the UK tour of their Studio 36 poster-rack publication project; and Robert Pratt’s orchestrated (and rather mysterious) ‘happening’.
Open Studio Weekend 6-9pm @ Alternator Studios and Project Space, Birkenhead — FREE
Situated in an old red-brick bakery, the Alternator artists — Brigitte Jurack, Julie Dodd, Wendy Williams and Carol Ramsay — invite you in for drinks and nibbles this week; have a look around the studios, ask questions about the work and the historic building, and bring an old book if you fancy making a Christmas gift during Dodd’s drop-in mini workshop.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Saturday — Exhibition Opens: Howard Hodgkin: Indian Waves 10am-6pm @ Gagosian Gallery, London — FREE
It seems that Hodgkin has been featured in loads of BBC programmes recently (including Abstract Artists In Their Own Words, BBC Four); here the reluctant artist exhibits work not seen for over 20 years. Expect a riot of colour from 30 gouaches, inspired by India and hand-painted in England between 1990 and 1991.
Uriel Orlow in Conversation with Chris Fite-Wassilak 3pm @ Towner Gallery, Eastbourne — FREE
Join writer and curator Chris Fite-Wassilak (Art Monthly, Art Review, Frieze) discuss artist Uriel Orlow’s 2010 installation The Short and the Long of It, which is now part of the permanent Towner Collection, which was inspired by the extraordinary real-life failed passage and subsequent stranding of 14 international cargo ships in the Suez Canal (1967-1975). Caught in the outbreak of the Six-Day War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the ships were only able to leave the canal when it reopened, an incredible eight years later. Expect to hear how Orlow captured broad historical references as well as more personal glimpses into the long-suffering crew members’ experiences.
Sunday — The French Connection (1971) 6pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £10/8
As TIME magazine rightly described it, William Friedkin’s classic is a “knockout police thriller with so much jarring excitement that it almost calls for comic-book expletives. POW! ZOWIE!” Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor, it’s Gene Hackman as NY detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle that steals the show. He and his partner, Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider), are on narcotics detail, tailing heroin smugglers Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) and his wife, Angie (Arlene Faber). Expect grimy realism, superb acting and one knock-out, high speed car chase.
Recital: Jacques Malchance plays Modest Mussorgsky 7.30pm @ the Kazimier, Liverpool — £2
Tonight, see Liverpool-based, Italian-born Jacques Malchance perform — in its entire, original form – Russian Romantic composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s most famous piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). A musical work in 10 movements, we are well-informed that it is a lengthy and fiendishly difficult suite that was, and is, ahead of its time.
