Culture Diary w/c 08-02-2016

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

Monday — Vinyl Station: Blackstar By David Bowie 6.30-8pm @Metal Culture, Liverpool – FREE

Listen to David Bowie’s latest and final album, Blackstar, in full tonight with fellow fans and discuss your reaction and review with DJ Bernie Connor. Receiving across-the-board critical acclaim on its release in early January — with critics rating it as ‘extraordinary’ (The Telegraph) and ‘startling’ (NME) — it also dropped just days before Bowie’s death from cancer. A parting gift?

Tuesday – Exhibition Opening: AVEDON WARHOL 6-8pm Gagosian Gallery (Britannia Street), London — FREE

Opening just one day after cult, contemporary, Californian filmmaker (Spring Breakers, Gummo) Harmony Korine’s swirling, oscillating ‘Fazor’ paintings exhibition at Gasgoian’s other London gallery on Davies Street, tonight sees the juxtaposition of two cult New York Pop artists: Richard Avedon and Andy Warhol. Showing work from 1950s-90s, expect Warhol’s seminal portrait of Mao Tse-tung plus Avedon’s bizarre, stretched Audrey Hepburn.

Tuesday – Exhibition Opening: AVEDON WARHOL 6-8pm Gagosian Gallery (Britannia Street), London -- FREE

Wednesday — Public Service Broadcasting 7pm @ O2 Academy, Liverpool — £20 SOLD OUT

Performing tracks from last year’s The Race For Space album (an eagerly awaited follow up to 2013′s debut smash Inform-Educate-Entertain), PSB manage to combine samples from film archives — usually voices set against sound — with their own range of guitar/electronica. The result is a bizarre reflection on culture, history and, in this album’s case, the incredible achievement of humanity as it first set foot on the moon. Tour continues in Nottingham and Norwich this week; see site for venues and dates.

Thursday — In Conversation With Jonathan Coe 6.30-8pm @ Edgehill University, Ormskirk — FREE

Join multi-award winning English writer (including the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for his biography of the novelist B.S. Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant) Jonathan Coe tonight as he discusses his new satirical novel Number 11. Taking in reality TV, Birmingham’s number 11 bus route, and a wealthy family’s basement extension, it’s a ruthlessly funny look at Britain’s wealth gap.

Exhibition Opening: Ob_ject And Ob_serve 5-8pm @ A Small View Gallery, Liverpool -- FREE

Exhibition Opening: Ob_ject And Ob_serve 5-8pm @ A Small View Gallery, Liverpool — FREE

What would happen if smartphones could take selfies of themselves? Artists, researchers and technologists Radamés Ajna, Thiago Hersan, Alex Pearl, Sam Skinner and Edgar Zanella as this and other questions around communication technologies tonight, ‘revealing the desires, memories and inner conversations of objects’. Working as a collective called Object Liberation Front, the group present soem of their artworks made whilst questioning non-anthropocentric Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for society.

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Emma Brown: What’s Holding Me Back? 6-8pm @ The Gallery At Bank Quay House, Warrington — FREE

Warrington-based artist and illustrator Emma Brown asked nine creative practitioners to speak honestly about the difficulties they face when making; drawing out their responses, expect to see new work in the gallery that provoke debate on career progression, the value of art and creativity, and what it’s like to work in isolation.

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Emma Brown: What's Holding Me Back? 6-8pm @ The Gallery At Bank Quay House, Warrington -- FREE

Saturday –  A Gig For Refugees In Crisis: The Grand Architects & Friends 7-11pm @ Buyers Club, Liverpool — £5

With all proceeds going to humanitarian groups Migrant Artist Mutual Aid and UAREUK, get along to Buyers Club tonight to show your support for refugees whilst enjoying a ton of live music. Expect alternative folk strings from Lizzie Nunnery and Vidar Norheim, The Grand Architects with John Smith, plus Dan the Manatee from The Wombats and duo Anwar Ali & Dave Owen.

Sunday – Last Day: An Imagined Museum 10am-5pm @ Tate Liverpool — £8/6

“What if art disappeared from our lives? If it was under threat, what are we going to do? What would we save? And what can art do for our lives and society that other things can’t do?” Budget cuts, political and religious censorship and terrorism; art and culture are under threat. In this acclaimed exhibition, Centre Pompidou-Metz, MMK and Tate Liverpool are asking us which artworks we would seek to save… catch the artworks before they are all removed from the gallery, ahead of a performance weekend of remembrance 20 and 21 Feb.

Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain (2015) 6.30-8.30 pm @ A Small Cinema, Liverpool -- £4

Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain (2015) 6.30-8.30 pm @ A Small Cinema, Liverpool — £4

Could you plan a more alternative Valentine’s Day?! Long praised as Britain’s answer to ‘austerity punk’, duo Sleaford Mods are known for their vitriolic live sets denouncing the equality gap and Conservative politics, and highlighting grim pop culture — everything from KFC to hipsters. See them in Nathan Hannawin and Paul Sng’s documentary as they tour the UK in the run up to the 2015 General Election.

Laura Robertson

Posted on 08/02/2016 by thedoublenegative