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Autumn Exhibitions Round-Up
It’s been a while since we went away. Now back in the saddle, we thought it was high time we cast our eye across exhibitions gracing Liverpool this autumn – as well as those a little further afield…
Wide Angle View (until 1 November) @ Tate Liverpool + RIBA North – FREE
This fascinating exhibition of The Architectural Review’s Manplan series – which looked at architecture’s social responsibilities – makes a mockery of RIBA North’s relatively limited floorspace, fitting tightly-curated sections of excellent photography within its confines. Published at the end of the ‘60s, Manplan strove to tackle questions of what a city might be, challenging the culture of the time across issues including Frustration, Local Government and Housing. Today, when cities often seem only to exist to relieve us of what little money we may have, the exhibition reminds us of other ideals, posing questions about social responsibility to citizens.
‘Just Come in’: 30 years of Maggie’s Centres (until 29 November) @ Tate Liverpool + RIBA North – FREE
Maggie’s is a charity that works with architects to consider how spaces for cancer support can best be designed. To mark 30 years of their existence, photographer Tabitha Jussa was commissioned to document some of the more than 30 centres offering a variety of support to people affected by cancer across the UK. Currently on display at RIBA North, ‘Just Come in’, says Jussa, explores “the relationship between people and place” that she encountered as she “set about capturing the nurturing and other worldly experience” found there.
Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 and Seema Mattu (until 14 February, 2027); BRB (until 6 December) @ FACT Liverpool – FREE
These fresh out of the box exhibitions tackle a multitude of issues. Singaporean artist Rae-Yen Song’s landscape-traversing show, above, looks at our connections to ecosystems (including insects from FACT’s rooftop garden), ancestors, and the cosmos, drawing on the immigrant experience to reimagine the world. Seema Mattu’s tour bus as installation encompasses music, sculpture, film and digital animation, with a focus on sonic joy, musicality and collectivity via tour Saheli – a group comprised of five South Asian queer women: Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay, MANI JNX, Ushara Dilrukshan, Zahrah Hutton and Mattu. Upstairs in BRB, Liverpool-based artists Livi Wilmore, Mrs Luva-Luva and Ellie Hoskins explore a mixture of the (very funny) mundane, abject and the increasingly blurry separation between on- and offline realms.
Close to Home (until 10 October) @ the Cunard Building, Liverpool – FREE
Close to Home, from Heart of Glass in St Helens, brings together eight years-worth of artist Mark Storor’s work made in collaboration with people with lived and living experience of suicide. Including film, photography, sculpture, poetry and music, the Liverpool city centre exhibition – part of a hugely ambitious long-term project – offers a space for contemplation, reflection and is an attempt to give voice to those affected by suicide. (Given the subject matter, it’s safe to assume Close to Home engages with themes that some people may find emotionally challenging.)
New Faces, New Focus: Stories We Share & Next Up! (until 20 December) @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
At nearby Open Eye gallery, meanwhile, you’ll find two jam-packed exhibitions. New Faces, New Focus: Stories We Share, is a collaborative endeavour developed in the Liverpool City Region, Armagh and Aberdeenshire, which foregrounds communities whose stories – dealing with themes of journeys, identity and home – are rarely represented in museum collections. Graduate showcase Next Up! includes work from the MA in Socially Engaged Photography, collaboratively run by Open Eye with the University of Salford. This year’s bright young things include early-career photographers, Yaqeen Amir (above), Ella Horniman, Jack Smith, and Helen Constantinou, whose works variously address personal memory; creative opportunity in underrepresented communities; the environment; and material.
Becky Beasley: ‘A Gentle Man (Part II) (1975-2029)’ (until 3 January, 2027) @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE
In this touring exhibition (below), described in its interpretation as “a meticulously constructed interior pastoral landscape,” Becky Beasley presents an immersive environment in four parts. Across work, family, chosen family and dying, Beasley proposes a trip through life’s milestones, taking in linoleum covered floor, a series of silhouette lakes, custom-made benches, ceramic and audio works, and a film narrated by Being Human actor Russell Tovey.
Linder: The Return of Linderland (until 3 October) @ Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool – FREE
Linder, who first came to attention with her arresting cover design for the Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict record sleeve, is now inarguably deserving of national treasure status. At Blackpool’s Grundy, the artist – born and bred in this part of the world – is celebrated in a remixed version of last year’s Hayward exhibition (top), with works spanning five decades of breaking and remaking the mould. Taking the DIY aesthetic and attitude of the post-punk scene as departure point, expect feminist photomontage, drawings, film and ephemera, alongside works by L.S. Lowry and paintings selected by Linder Sterling herself from the Grundy’s collection.
Leonard McComb: Nature & Humanity (until 31 October) @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead – FREE
Sculptor, painter, printmaker, draughtsman and teacher, Williamson exhibition Nature & Humanity celebrates Royal Academician Leonard McComb. Across 60 works, including key paintings, drawings, and sculpture, it focuses in-particular on the artist’s interest in ecologies. Situating the exhibition in today’s context, curator Josh Mackarell said: “McComb’s work is not just relevant to our modern times for its beauty and technical brilliance, but also because its environmental outlook speaks to the fundamental debates of our time.”
Making a Mark: Artworks from the Studio Prints Collection (until 30 January 2027) @ Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool – FREE
Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Dorothea Wight are among the artists featuring in current VG&M exhibition, Making a Mark. Drawn from the Studio Prints Collection – which grew out of a workshop established in 1968 by Wight, who was later joined by future husband Marc Balakjian – the exhibition, says curator Sarah Cox, “tells a unique and compelling story about the convergence of technical skill and creative ambition.” It all makes for a cracking insight into complementary artistic practice.
Anthony Shapland – murmur (until 31 October) @ Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham – FREE
“Starlings are arch imitators. They can replicate the sounds of other birds and their wider environment, including the mechanical noise of traffic crossings and ringtones.” So writes Marie-Anne McQuay, curator of Anthony Shapland’s murmur, an exhibition that uses this idea of mimicry as a metaphor for the masking we each perform in life. Exploring the idea across text, audio-visual, and sculptural works in autobiographical fashion, Shapland dissects social mores more broadly so that we might all find ourselves reflected therein.
Further Reading: Mirror Selves – Anthony Shapland’s murmur
Taking Centre Stage: Female Artists in The Atkinson’s Collection (until 27 February 2027) @ the Atkinson Southport – FREE
Galleries and museums with collections increasingly recognise their responsibility to paint a more varied picture of art history than was, up until alarmingly recently, not thought strictly necessary. Currently at Southport’s Atkinson (which you overlook at your peril), that means taking a closer look at the story of some of its female artists, including Alice Havers, Laura Knight, and Tracey Emin.
Mike Pinnington
Images, from top: installation view of Linder’s Danger Came Smiling, The Pool of Life (2021), photo by Mark Blower (courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery); Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊, •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• (2026). Installation view at FACT Liverpool. Courtesy the artist. Photography by Rob Battersby; Yaqeen Amir/Open Eye Gallery; Beack Beasley installation photography, Kieran Irvine; Murmer, Anthony Shapland. Installation view, Tŷ Pawb, 2026. Photography by Harry Meadley
