Culture Diary w/c 29-04-2019
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the North of England and the rest of the UK – and loads of it’s free!
Monday – An Accidental Studio 9pm @ FACT Liverpool – £7.70
Life of Brian, The Long Good Friday, Time Bandits, Withnail and I – HandMade Films, a production company formed in 1978 by George Harrison and his business partner Denis O’Brien, was behind many of the British film industry’s biggest and best received hits. With insight from key figures, An Accidental Studio charts their ups and downs, with a prerecorded Q&A featuring Sir Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Ray Cooper, hosted by actor and broadcaster Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Tuesday – The Coathangers 7pm @ Arts Club, Liverpool – £9
It’s a good week for live music fans in Liverpool, kicked off tonight by the “rowdy, ramshackle, and infectious” garage rock of this Atlanta, Georgia three piece formed in 2006. After a break last year, they’re back and touring their latest long-player, The Devil You Know. The release – met with glowing reviews – responds to and is about “our stories and life experiences, giving up the devil we know”, says guitarist Julia Kugel.
Wednesday – Kehinde Andrews Talk 6pm @ Tate Liverpool – £5
Anybody who has wandered, prepared or otherwise, into the ground floor Wolfson gallery at Tate Liverpool these last few weeks, will surely have come out changed somewhat. For, they will have experienced the seven-minute burst of choppy editing and home truths that is Arthur Jafa’s 2016 film Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death. Tonight, professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University and author of Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century, Kehinde Andrews responds to Jafa’s sucker punch of a film.
WoWFEST, Liverpool – Prices Vary
Liverpool’s impressively programmed literary festival is back, and gets off to a bang this evening with author Will Self’s keynote speech responding to this year’s theme of Where Are We Now? Tomorrow, meanwhile, sees an exhibition launch at the Central Library marking the centenary of the 1919 Race Riots. With a packed schedule of talks and events running through May, just some of our picks include Common People – Class in the Margins in Writing and Publishing; LOWBORN: Kerry Hudson Book Launch and Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story.
Exhibition Opening: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Kathy Acker 6pm @ ICA, London – FREE
Novelist, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer, where to start with Kathy Acker? This question seems to be the departure point and guiding rationale of I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Kathy Acker, the first UK exhibition dedicated to this “still-unfolding cultural force”. Described on the website as “polyvocal”, the exhibition is structured around and responds to fragments of Acker’s writing, complemented and augmented by works of other artists and writers. Also including audio and video documentation of Acker’s performances from her personal archive, the show promises to be rich and ripe for the unpicking.
Thursday – Output Open 2 6pm @ Output Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
Last month marked the first anniversary of Output Gallery. A welcome addition to Liverpool’s cultural landscape, its remit is to platform artists based in or from the city. Tonight’s second annual Output Open brings together the work of Claire Holtaway, Nneka Cummins, John Elcock, Zhuozhang Li, Paul Mellor, Gold Akanbi, Grace Edwards, Sumuyya Khader, Josie Jenkins and Sophie Green “to showcase the great amount of creative activity that is happening locally”.
Friday – Sound City, Liverpool – £75/£55
A smart, discernible shift in programming has seen Liverpool Sound City move to emphasise emerging talent as the mainstay of its lineup. Alongside acts such as Loyle Carner, Mabel and The Magic Gang, expect industry chat and insight from the likes of Nothin But The Music’s Yaw Owusu, Amelie Bonvalot from Domino Records, and BBC Introducing’s Huw Stephens.
Saturday – Exhibition Closing: Aslan Gaisumov and Janice Kerbel @ Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre – FREE
On display at Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre as part of the Liverpool Biennial touring programme, Aslan Gaisumov’s Keicheyuhea, and Janice Kerbel closes this week. The former deals with the fall out felt by Chechen people, displaced by the Soviets towards the end of the Second World War, while Kerbel’s Fight silkscreens depict the violence of and in words. Catch it while you can. Read our review.
Sunday – Sounds from the Other City – £25
“Salford’s celebration of new music, performance and art,” Sounds from the Other City this year celebrates its QUINDECENNIAL – its fifteenth anniversary to you and me. Wisely scheduled prior to May Bank holiday, the lineup is chock full of acts flying under the radar. If you’re not au fait with many of those fresh names, look out for Sneaks, Withered Hand, The Orielles and Working Men’s Club.
Mike Pinnington
Images/media from top: An Accidental Studio trailer; still from Arthur Jafa’s Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death (2016); Kathy Acker; still from Aslan Gaisumov’s Keicheyuhea (2017)
