Culture Diary w/c 06-07-2015
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Monday – Cooper Gallery Summer Residency 2015: Thingness? 10-5pm @ Cooper Gallery, Dundee – FREE
As part of the on-going residency programme, Cooper Gallery hosts Glasgow-based artist Oliver Braid and Lyon-based artist Anouchka Oler as they present their own interpretations of ‘Object-Oriented Ontology’ – a philosophical phenomenon that will be investigated through the concept of ‘thingness.’ With help from Edinburgh-based philosopher Joseph Fletcher, we are invited to reflect upon each artist’s work and to discover new ways of experiencing contemporary culture.
Tuesday – Liverpool Biennial: Which Date Should We Pick? 6.30pm @ The Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE
With the announcement that next year’s Liverpool Biennial will take the form of a series of episodes, one episode in particular will run throughout the whole of the biennial, and this time the Biennial’s curatorial faculty want your input. Tonight, join the team in the Upstairs Bistro for the opportunity to pitch your ideas about which date you would choose to shape the content — perhaps a date of historical importance, a fictional time frame (think Back to the Future, Groundhog Day or 1984) or something as personal as your birthday. Everyone has their opinions about what makes a good exhibition – now here’s your chance to have your say.
Wednesday – Future Station with Mark Fisher 6pm @ Metal, Liverpool – FREE (Booking Required)
Contemplating the state of contemporary arts, cultural theorist and writer Mark Fisher takes a fresh look at the challenges faced by artists in today’s society and the effect of this on an audience. Fisher will also be joined by several artists as they share some of their works in progress in a bid to provide a visual stimulus for further debate and inspiration.
Thursday – Peter Fraser: A City In The Mind 6pm @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – £5/3 (Booking Required)
Acclaimed and pioneering photographer Peter Fraser is joined in conversation with photography academic and expert Mark Durden to discuss Fraser’s latest book of photographs, A City in the Mind. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s book, Invisible Cities (1972), we are afforded a glimpse into the poeticism of a real and imagined London and the projects that Fraser has lined up in the future.
Selected V: A Lucky Dip Of Emerging Artists’ Film Talent 7pm @ FACT, Liverpool – £4/£3
Tonight Selected 5 presents an ‘in conversation’ event with some of the UKs most promising emerging film artists – such as Lucy Beech, Tom Lock, Kate Cooper and Min-Wei Ting – and chance to see their exciting new works. Chosen by artists nominated for the 2014 Jarman Award, each up and coming film maker shares their own unique voice on contemporary culture.
LIV-BCN Festival (Until Saturday) @ A Small Cinema (£3), Exhibition Research Centre (FREE) and The Kazimier (£15), Liverpool
Fresh of the plane from Barcelona, and for the second year running, LIV-BCN festival again invites the two cities to meet in the middle. Starting tonight at A Small Cinema, and a far cry from the Disney animation, Blancanieves is director Pablo Berger’s highly unconventional take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Snow White. Friday night sees our very own Editor Laura Robertson curating the festival’s inaugural exhibition at the ERC – featuring Liverpool designer John Wai, Visual Cities illustrator Mariadiamantes plus a selection of fantastic third year graphic artists from both LJMU and BAU universities. The grand finale on Saturday, The Kazimier and The Kazimier Gardens will be hosting a night of fuzzy, reverb heavy rock, pop and indie music from Barcelona and Liverpool locals. Expect Internal Wrangler, Clinic, Univers, Minion TV and The Suicide of Western Culture. We’ll see you at the front!
Friday – REALITY: Modern And Contemporary British Painting 10-5pm @ Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
Home to the John Moore’s Painting Prize, it seems very fitting that the Walker should celebrate the best of British painting in this stunning new exhibition. Featuring 50 paintings from artists as diverse as David Hockney, Walter Sickert, George Shaw, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, each artist is united in their mastery of the paintbrush and their individual visions of the Britain they see and have seen in their lifetimes.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Manchester International Festival: Tree Of Codes 8pm @ Opera House, Manchester — £12-£45
Described as ‘the most radical and important arts festival today’ (The New Yorker), tonight sees a brand new collaborative project between choreographer Wayne McGregor, visual artist Olafur Eliasson and Mercury Prize-winning producer/composer Jamie xx, in which ballet is reimagined for a contemporary audience. Inspired by the book Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer, soloists and dancers from The Paris Opera Ballet will respond to this work in a specially created environment by Eliasson.
Sunday – Space To Think: Tony Swain 2-4pm @ Baltic, Newcastle – £5/£4
The landscape genre is reimagined in the painted work of artist Tony Swain by layering acrylic paint over collaged newsprint to create abstracted and fragmented scenery. In this one-off session with Community Philosophers Grace Robinson and Liz Watkins, Swain’s work is used as a visual base to explore wider artistic and philosophical concerns, asking ‘How does art represent?’ and ‘Can anything be represented?’
Heather Garner
Keen to hear about the best art, design, film and music events happening in Liverpool July-Sept 2015?
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