Culture Diary w/c 17-08-2015
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Monday — Mistress America (2015) 2.30/4.30.6.30/8.30pm @ FACT Liverpool — £10/9
Tipped as star Greta Gerwig’s best film yet — and moving Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw to coin the term ‘mumblecore screwball’ — this brand new New York comedy comes co-written by Gerwig and director Noah Baumbach. Revolving around 30-something Brooke (Gerwig) making friends with soon-to-be younger stepsister and novice writer Tracy (Lola Kirke). Impressed by Brooke’s seemingly successful creative career and girl-about-town lifestyle, she submits a scathing short story about her to her college literary society, resulting in a set of very awkward — and funny — circumstances.
Wednesday — Slim Jim Phantom Of The Stray Cats 7pm @ O2 Academy, Liverpool — £19.12 + Booking Fees
Rockabilly New Yorker and Stray Cats’ drummer Slim Jim Phantom comes to Liverpool tonight to play his own brand of rock ‘n’ roll. Known for storming Thursday nights with celebrity guests at his Cat Club on Sunset Strip — with ‘Head Cat’ Lemmy from Motorhead — plus forming the Forgotten Saints with longtime friend Captain Sensible of The Damned (which invites a different guest for each gig), expect to hear classic tracks Runaway Boys, Rock This Town and Stray Cut Strut as well as some new numbers. Dare you not to dance. Listen here…
Thursday – Exhibition Opens: Rosika Desnoyers: The Creative Industry of Mary Linwood 1-6pm @ ACME Project Space, London – FREE
Presenting a unique collection of new embroidery, made over a six-month studio residency as the Canada Council for the Arts London Artist Resident, here Desnoyers offers a peek into her research of the needlepoint of the late eighteen-century practitioner Mary Linwood. Having worked in several national museums in Canada and the United States, and as author of the forthcoming Berlin Work, Genealogy, Needlepainting: A History of Errors, expect incredibly detailed and knowledgeable, traditional craft with a twist.
Izem 8pm @ The Kazimier Garden, Liverpool — £2 OTD
Best described we think as an alternative Stereolab, French ambient/electro artist Izem visits the Kazimier Gardens tonight courtesy of everisland. Recently championed by Gilles Peterson on BBC 6 Music — specifically his remix of Jose James – expect tropical beats from debut album Hafa.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Friday — Talk: Josh Kline & Amy Sherlock 6-7pm @ Modern Art Oxford — FREE
An ‘in conversation’ via Frieze editor Amy Sherlock in celebration of his first ever solo show Freedom (also opening tonight alongside Kiki Kogelnik’s Fly Me to the Moon), Kline discusses the themes and ideas that inform his strange and dystopian work, from media manipulation to 3D printing. Featuring four giant Teletubbies dressed in SWAT gear, guarding New York’s Occupy Wall Street camp, and a Barack Obama augmented with facial substitution software, expect a alternative take on political critique.
Saturday – Last Day: Jennet Thomas, THE UNSPEAKABLE FREEDOM DEVICE 10am-5pm @ Grundy Gallery, Blackpool — FREE
A must-see exhibition that has seen its fair share of controversy, Jennet Thomas presents a warped sci-fi folk-tale around a fictitious polital conference, with a good dollop of Margaret Thatcher, British satire, and madcap performance. An artist who has ‘traditionally adopted intelligent forms of reinterpreting some of the worst aspects of political and cultural extremities’ according to our reviewer Deb Laing, expect a fantastic installation that provokes thought about how we vote and how we choose.
Independent Liverpool: The Festival 12pm-12am 6pm (Until Sunday) @ Secret Location, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool — £9.50 + Booking Fee Per Day
Showcasing a selection of small, local businesses by transforming a brand new event space in the heart of the Baltic Triangle into an all day and night urban market, expect the best food, drink, art & craft, print and produce the city has to offer — including a pop-up gin garden, craft beer bar, whisky den, and live DJs.
Annual Open Weekend 12-6pm (Until Sunday) @ Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge – FREE
Exhibitions, events and performances from one of our favourite national art spaces, Wysing’s Open Weekend returns, featuring a peek into the studios of artists Alexandra Drysdale, Bettina Furnée, Alison Gibb, Naomi Harwin, and more. A great chance to enjoy this and the public sculpture, walks, picnic areas and pop-up a café of the centre’s 11 acre location, plus the closing exhibition from Leverhulme Arts Scholars Summer School in the gallery.
Sunday — Last day: OPEN 1 10.30-5.30pm @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
As a result of Open Eye’s ongoing call for exhibition submissions and (satisfyingly) coinciding with this year’s LOOK/15, Open 1 is the first of three annual showcases of six selected artists, whose works take on the theme of social portraiture. In a bid to highlight collective and often political issues through the telling of individual stories, expect thought-provoking tales of imprisonment, protest, religion and self-expression.
Laura Robertson (Editor)
Keen to hear about the best art, design, film and music events happening in Liverpool July-Sept 2015?
Wait no more! Download the PDF version of our indispensable new pocket-guide, Culture Diary, now.
