Culture Diary 21-09-2015

What’s hot this week? Our pick of the arts listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…

Tuesday – Exhibition Opening: Robert Irwin 6-8pm @ White Cube Gallery, Bermondsey, London – FREE

With a career spanning more than 50 years, this new exhibition brings together sculptures and installations (including florescent works and transparent, acrylic columns) that demonstrate Irwin’s enduring influence on American art. Using light, and subtle shifts in special perception, we are encouraged to view these minimal creations as a means to become aware of the visual field around us.

Wednesday – Cheap Thrills Presents Anthropophagous: The Beast (1980) 7.30pm @ A Small Cinema, Liverpool — £5

Banned in the UK until only this year, director Joe D’Amato’s notorious video nasty will tonight be screened in its uncut and brutal entirety as part of Scalarama’s VHSitval theme, as well as celebrating 30 years since the enforcement of the Video Recordings Act. A true slasher horror film, a group of holiday makers are stranded on a Greek island as they slowly become aware of the terror awaiting them.

Thursday – Exhibition Opening: The Manchester Contemporary Preview 5.30-9pm @ Old Granada Studios, Manchester – £9.40

Be the first to enojoys a glass of wine tonight with Manchester Contemporary and their display of the best UK contemporary galleries and their artists; all gathered together under one roof. Collectors and newbies alike can identify (and perhaps invest in) talent from Bloc Projects (Sheffield), Grand Union (Birmingham), Patricia Fleming Projects (Glasgow), Supercollider (Blackpool), Vane (Newcastle), VITRINE (London) and many more. Open until Sunday along with Buy Art Fair, expect affordable artwork, guided tours and an In Conversation with Prof. Pavel Büchler and artists Leo Fitzmaurice, Maeve Rendell and Magnus Quaife (Sun 1pm).

Lampedusa 8pm @ Unity Theatre, Liverpool – £14-£8

The image of white sandy beaches of the paradise island of Lampedusa is shattered in award-winning playwright, Anders Lustgarten’s heart-wrenching and (tragically) timely play. ‘One of the most gently enticing pieces of storytelling you will see’ (The Times), we follow the devastating outcome of migrants crossing Mediterranean and witness the bleakest backdrop of modern day Britain; yet, amidst this, hope and connection is manifest between two strangers.

Friday – Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia 3pm-4am @ Camp And Furnace, Liverpool – £30 (Friday Ticket) / £35 (Saturday Ticket) / £60 (Weekend Ticket)

Get ready for another weekend of trippy tunes in celebration of all things psychedelic, spread over warehouse venues in the Baltic Triangle (including District and Camp & Furnace). Expect epic performances from the likes of Spiritualized, Factory Floor, Tess Parks and Anton Newcome, Hookworms and The Heads, plus a scintillating programme of DJ sets, installations and audio-visual experiments to prove that psychedelia is still at the forefront of artistic exploration.

SLAM Friday: Artists’ Floor Talk 6.30-8pm @ Jerwood Space, London — FREE

Find out more about the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK, the Jerwood Drawing Prize, from its co-founder Paul Thomas, along with artists included in this hugely varied, cocurrent exhibition (which runs until 25 Oct). Expect to see artists at very different stages of their careers and development — including winner Tom Harrison (below) — who all use drawing as a vital part of their creativity.

The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead 7.30pm @ Everyman Theatre, Liverpool – £12-£22

After the success of their acclaimed collaboration on the 2014 hit The Last Days of Troy, Everyman associate director Nick Bagnall and poet and author Simon Armitage reunite to bring us this gigantic reimagining of Homer’s The Odyssey. This time, our Odysseus takes the form of a modern day politician on the run from the relentless pursuit of fanatics, and is flung into the ancient past, where he become embroiled in other-worldly phenomenon in a desperate bid for survival and his safe return home.

Saturday – The Icicle Works 7pm @ O2 Academy, Liverpool – £16.87

With Liverpool’s psych fest kicking off this week, The Icicle Works are also returning to the city to provide an extra dose of neo-psychedelic rock in a two hour set of hits from their explosive career. Fronted by the legend that is Ian McNabb, we are treated to classics from their 1983 self-titled debut.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Sunday – ESG 7.30pm @ The Kazimier, Liverpool — £17.50

Live performances in the UK are a rare thing for the South Bronx Art-Funk combo ESG (AKA Emerald, Sapphire, Gold) but tonight Liverpool is lucky enough to be one of only four UK tour dates from the inimitable Scroggins sisters — so this one’s not to be missed. Hailed as pioneers of hip-hop, post-punk, funk and new wave, expect a night ‘drenched with cool, menace and dread’ and a helping of ‘universal good-time music’ (The Guardian).

Last Day: Resource 10-6pm @ The Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE

Using The Bluecoat’s manifesto – ‘ Founded for… the diffusion of useful knowledge’— as a direct influence, this is your last chance to see Resource, showcasing the subversive and playful creations  from artists including Clay Arlington, Jack Brindley, Ben Cain, Maurice Carlin, Daniel Eatock and Sean Edwards. Here, new artworks suggest the gallery’s ethos, whilst opening up the everyday life of The Bluecoat to the public, and questioning the nature and future possibilities of arts centres.

Heather Garner

Keen to hear about the best art, design, film and music events happening in Liverpool July-Sept 2015?

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