Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events…

Monday – Long Life, Low Energy: Designing for a Circular Economy @ Tate Liverpool – FREE

An ongoing impact of the pandemic in Liverpool means many galleries and museums only opening from Tuesdays onwards. If you find yourself on a blustery waterfront today, however, rest assured that the RIBA building on Mann Island – as part of a new partnership with Tate Liverpool – is open all week. Many will be grateful of the cosy café and shop on the ground floor. Upstairs, repurposed RIBA exhibition, Long Life, Low Energy: Designing for a Circular Economy, considers how we can think differently about buildings, to achieve a crucial reduction in our carbon emissions.

Tuesday – Klimt and The Kiss 1pm @ FACT Liverpool – £17.50/£15/£10

A look at the decadence and glamour of the Vienna Secession movement through the lens of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss – one of the world’s most recognised and reproduced paintings.

Wednesday – Stereolab doors 7pm @ Content, Liverpool – £27

Critically acclaimed and much loved Anglo-French band Stereolab were first thrust to my attention when the title track of their 1996 album Emperor Tomato Ketchup came free with a magazine compilation. Now, for me, they always seem to have been there. Sometimes hovering in the background, other times front and centre; the following year’s Dots and Loops is synonymous with my two best mates’ move to London, and years later with soundtracking my partner’s time spent playing Mario Kart while bunking off university. I saw them support Pavement in 1999, and have enthusiastically gobbled up the various recent reissues on vinyl. This week they return to Liverpool for the first time this century; I can hardly wait.

Thursday – Of Time And The City 12.45pm @ FACT Liverpool – £10.40/£9.40/£6.90

Fascinating archive footage is combined with personal commentary from Terrence Davies to produce a complex love letter to/City Symphony for Liverpool. Already weighty with his own recollections and pop culture quotations, the film has yet more poignance given the great director’s recent passing.

Essential Reading: Laura Brown on Terence Davies – Liverpool’s Greatest Son

Friday – David Hoyle: Ten Commandments 8pm @ Unity Theatre – £12/£10

Queer icon and survivor of a religious upbringing, for one night only, performance artist David Hoyle brings their Ten Commandments show to the Unity Theatre as part of Homotopia Festival (which got underway this past weekend).

Saturday – Bernice Mulenga: Exhibition and Artist Talk 2pm @ Open Eye Gallery – FREE

Exploring themes which include identity, sexuality, grief, darkness and family, hear British-Congolese photographer Bernice Mulenga expand on their eponymous exhibition (on display from Friday) in Open Eye Gallery’s atrium space.

Sunday – Haunted: The Innocents 5.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8/£5

Director Jack Clayton takes on Henry James’ spine tingling novella in what is considered by many – us included – as the best adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. Dripping with cloyingly sinister Gothic panache, a distressed governess of two young children is faced with the terrifying and malevolent spectres (real or imagined?) that continue to reside within the isolating grounds and walls of a country mansion.

Mike Pinnington

Images, from top: RIBA/Tate: Long Life, Low Energy: Designing for a Circular Economy Agnese Sanvito; Klimt And The Kiss trailer; Stereolab; Of Time And The City (still); Bernice Mulenga

We were devastated to learn of the recent passing of our friend and contributor, Pete Goodbody: photographer and cultural philanthropist.

Pete, or P3dro, was a talented photographer and writer with a keen interest in artists, festivals, live music, food and travelling. He championed many people, projects and places across Liverpool, The Double Negative included. Pete attended our first contributor meetings, suggesting people and projects close to his heart that deserved more coverage, to be shouted about and celebrated. He would later become a donor, ever eager to help sustain indie publishing.

Many artists reading this will remember his enthusiasm and encouragement – attending their first gig or exhibition with his camera, sharing images afterwards (often for free), buying artwork, tickets or merch: ongoing acts of kindness that help nurture culture, as well as feeding Pete’s love of the scene. He was often accompanied by his beloved dog Kylie: “Her racing name was ‘Spinning Around’. She does. Often. But only anti-clockwise.”

Pete readily and regularly contributed thoughtful words and images to The Double Negative and other publications that discussed art and culture: covering the Sicilian Mafia in Italy and hyperrealistic sculpture in Denmark; giant pinhole cameras and Tracey Emin’s Bed; festivals Homotopia, River of Light, LOOK, Africa Oyé. He even showed up with his camera at Antony Gormley’s London studio.

Pete had two, equally talented sides: his creative practice, and his work as a barrister, specialising in commercial and chancery law. He was respected in both fields, in part, we imagine, due to his love of people and interest in their lives, a sharp eye for detail, and unwavering energy and enthusiasm.

We last saw Pete on a walking tour of Liverpool sculpture we organised a few months ago. Of course, as the above image attests, he showed up to support. We laughed, talked about art, its purpose, history, made new friends, had a few drinks, and reminisced about parts of the city he’d enjoyed walking and photographing.

Pete, you were a generous friend, a lovely person, and you’ll leave a space here in the city. You’ll be sorely missed.

Here are some of our favourite Pete Goodbody articles.

Above: Liverpool’s River Of Light – In Pictures

“This mini festival of eleven light installations dotted around Pier Head, Mann Island, Liverpool One and Castle Street is both a delight and a gentle re-introduction to the point at which we all remember our last gig, or the last real get-together with mates.”

Letizia Battaglia: Breaking the Code of Silence

“Battaglia, ultimately, suffered for her work. She lived in the old centre of Palermo, a grim place to be and was often burgled as a result. Death threats due to the nature of her work were a feature of her life, yet she carried on. She wasn’t the only one. There are plenty of photographs in this exhibition of magistrates and prosecutors slain by Mafia bullets who fought the same war. But it is due to her work, and the crucial role played by her pictures, that has helped to give Sicilians a voice in opposing the Mafia system.”

In Pictures: Africa Oyé

“Shooting Africa Oyé is always good fun, both the bands and the crowd (I had a pass for the pit, but it isn’t always needed — it’s easy enough to get close to the front anyway). It’s a highlight of the year for me; Liverpool does this kind of event so well and seems to have an understanding, even in this challenging economic climate, that it is important still to get people out in the park to have a good time.”

Field Trip: Gosh! Is It Alive? ARKEN Museum Of Modern Art, Denmark

“Nakedness is a recurring theme. In itself, this seems an unlikely problem for an exhibition, but these were replicas of people laying bare not only their bodies, but also their souls. We were staring into their lives, and they let us in. It didn’t matter that they were inanimate; to the viewer, they were pretty much real, and it would only take one of them to breathe or to wink back at us and we would have been completely freaked out.”

Venice Biennale and Tea at the British Pavilion

“3,000 cups of free tea were being served in the British Pavilion every day. Art? Who cares when there’s tea involved.

Actually, I do care. These things are important. A nice cup of tea might seem like a kind of quirky token in the British Pavilion, but when the same thing is done in the Iraqi pavilion, then it becomes all the more important. Here we saw works by a selection of artists based in Iraq but who were all working on the same theme of representing daily life in a war ravaged country.”

Laura Robertson and Mike Pinnington

All images courtesy Pete Goodbody except Palermo, 1992. Rosaria Schifani, the widow of police agent Vito killed together with judge Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo and his colleagues Di Cillo and Antonio Montinaro © Letizia Battaglia

See all of Pete Goodbody’s images and words, contributed to this publication, here, and his website and Twitter

Arts and culture organisations have been anxiously waiting for their fates to be revealed this morning, as Arts Council England finally announce who gets the 2023-26 round of ‘National Portfolio Organisation’ (NPO) funding.

At 11am this morning, many of our best known and cherished galleries, museums, theatres, publishers, commissioners, project spaces and creative venues across England found out who received (and who didn’t) this significant investment from the national funds, which will see them through the next three years.

It is clear that some have lost this funding completely, making their futures unsure, and others are receiving it for the first time.

The announcement is being broadcast live, here, but was delayed for more than a week, due to the chaotic changes in government.

On this morning’s announcement and selection process for 2023-26, Arts Council said: “The decisions made in this round of National Portfolio funding have been driven by the principles of Arts Council England’s 10 year-strategy, Let’s Create, and by a commitment to creating a fairer spread of investment across the country through a focus on those places where historically, public investment in creativity and culture has been low.”

In a complex application process, organisations wishing to become one of the Arts Council England’s limited list of NPOs have to apply with a ‘realistic and achievable’ business plan every three years. As explained on their website, Arts Council England expect budding and existing NPOs ‘to achieve value for money on behalf of the public.’

A key word in Arts Council’s communication has been the term ‘levelling-up’: suggesting that more should be done outside of the London area. London remains, however, their largest investment, and questions are being asked about whether taking from some to fund others is ethical. Criticism is also aimed at the funding body’s aim to ‘transfer’ their arts organisations (including NPOs and Investment Principles Support Organisations, or IPSOs) out of London, if they wish to remain recipients of Arts Council money.

It was with grim interest (and practically open-mouthed) that this week we read that the Telegraph had lazily declared Liverpool, more or less, a cultural backwater, in an article written under the artificial pretext of a Liverpool versus Glasgow face-off.

“Let us imagine for one moment that this is actually a prize awarded to the most culturally significant city. Who would come out on top?” the Telegraph article asks with glee, pitting one great city against another. Of Liverpool’s cultural status, it declares: the city “falls short, with no art galleries, dance companies or opera houses – at least not any that carry any great significance beyond the North West.” We could almost hear a collective sigh echoing from both cities. It’s tiring having to deal with such rubbish.

It is unclear exactly what the author’s criteria for “significance” was. But we found it particularly interesting – and illuminating – that it began with the throwaway “For a moment, I am going to step outside of my London bubble.” Had they ever visited Liverpool at all? Reading like a flagrantly partisan blog, the piece fails – is perhaps unable – to see or give another perspective. The thrust of any well-made argument falls apart as soon as the decision is made not to mention any of Liverpool’s galleries or museums. Which begs the question: was their concern that, under closer scrutiny, they would give the game away, proving their theory laughable?

This is not the first time this has happened, of course; our initial reaction was that this read as very outdated – like something written about the city in the 1980s, when national media saw Liverpool as more than fair game. We’ve seen our fair share of ignorant journalism. We remembered how, in 2020, there was a call for the establishment of a national slavery museum to recognise the UK’s part in the slave trade. All well and good. The only thing is, an International Slavery Museum already existed: in Liverpool, and has done since 2007.

Never mind that the city is also home to a Tate (holder of the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day, as well as modern and contemporary art from around the globe); Bluecoat, the UK’s first arts centre (and perhaps the first arts venue in the North-West to stage an exhibition that specifically focussed on work by Black British artists); an embarrassment of riches on William Brown Street (including The Walker Art Gallery, national gallery of the North) and the largest festival of contemporary visual art in the UK (Liverpool Biennial).

Then there’s FACT (Film, Art & Creative Technology), who have been exhibiting critically acclaimed artists experimenting with film, moving image and new tech since 2003 (including significant solo shows by French New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda, and the father of video art Nam June Paik); Open Eye, one of the oldest dedicated photography galleries in the British Isles and a pioneer in socially engaged work. Exciting presentation spaces like these are supported by annual showcases and commissioners like Africa Oyé, Liverpool Irish Festival, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, DaDa (Disability and Deaf Arts), Writing on the Wall Festival, Homotopia, plus art production spaces like Baltic Creative, The Royal Standard, CBS, Bridewell Studios, and producing theatres, the Everyman and Playhouse, who support new writers and theatre makers. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on Hope Street is home to the UK’s oldest continuing professional touring symphony orchestra, led in the past by Sir Charles Hallé, Vasily Petrenko, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and now Domingo Hindoyan (formerly of The Metropolitan Opera and Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin).

There are clearly too many to mention, which is why so many undergraduates moving to the region for its four universities stay and call Liverpool their home, setting up their own creative projects and businesses. But if the only cultural offer Liverpool had to its name was the International Slavery Museum, it would retain its status as a relevant and significant city – culturally, socially, and politically.

When we started this publication, Liverpool – then a recent recipient of European Capital of Culture, home to Tate Liverpool and the first to host the Turner Prize outside of London – had a mature, ambitious, and lively arts scene. As such, we felt it could benefit from a critical friend in the form of The Double Negative. If something was great, we’d say so. Equally, if it fell short, we wouldn’t be shy about it.

Importantly, there was more than enough cultural output on our doorstep to support a new publication of this kind. To this day, we can write about a new exhibition, stage production, public artwork, gig or concert, festival, live art event, book launch, open studios… The list goes on. Despite bigger threats to the city’s cultural offer (like the pandemic, austerity, Brexit, and funding cuts to the arts) the city’s galleries remain ambitious and outward looking, and, as such, there are no signs as yet that we are at risk of exhausting our subject matter at The Double Negative. We never take this for granted, and articles like this fuel our desire to shout about and analyse what goes on here.

So: obtuse ignorant ramblings of somebody who has never set foot off the train at Liverpool Lime Street, or simple good old-fashioned Liverpool-baiting? We don’t know which is worse; either or both would be as revealing as it is embarrassing for and unbecoming of a national newspaper. It seems deliberate, as a quick Google would quickly put this argument to bed. What we do know, however, is that such poorly informed opinion only serves to highlight the necessity of critical voices outside of London: whether from Liverpool, Glasgow, or elsewhere, but especially from small working class cities who specialise in fantastic arts and culture. It reaffirms our importance; and, ironically, the provincialism of a London-based writer.

Mike Pinnington (and Laura Robertson)

We’re having a book party and you’re invited!

* WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2019 AT 18.30–19.30, TATE LIVERPOOL, ALBERT DOCK, L3 4BB

* WELCOME AND THANK YOU TO ALL KICKSTARTER PATRONS WHO BOUGHT EARLY BIRD TICKETS: JOIN US FOR VIP DRINKS AND TO COLLECT YOUR BOOK! 

* NO TICKET? DON’T DESPAIR! £2 TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE, ALL VERY WELCOME

* POSH TEA! BEER! READINGS! LIVELY CHAT! BOOKS ON SALE!

Join us for the official launch of Present Tense: A decade since Liverpool EU Capital of Culture… What now?

Hear from us, the book’s editors, Laura Robertson and Mike Pinnington, and two of the superb authors, Jacob Bolton and Stephanie Bailey. Enjoy an evening of live readings, drinks and conversation about a decade of change to Liverpool’s cultural landscape.

Through eight new essays on the city’s past, present and future from indie publisher The Double Negative, Present Tense features daring new voices in art criticism from the North-West, alongside acclaimed writers from the world’s biggest art magazines.

Talking about artists, collectives and venues including Tate Liverpool, FACT, Barbara Hepworth, Homotopia, The Kazimier, ROOT-ed zine, and more.

That ticket booking link again, taking you directly to Tate Liverpool website Can’t attend this time? Limited edition copies available to purchase through our online shop now.

Read more about the book, and the authors’ journey through The Double Negative Fellowship.

Present Tense

A decade since Liverpool EU Capital of Culture… What now? 

Edited by Laura Robertson and Mike Pinnington

ISBN 978-1-5272-4281-4

Published August 2019. Very limited edition run of 250 copies. Paperback, 96 pages, undersize A5, matt finish

Price: £14.99. We’ll deliver to anywhere in the world.

//

Eight new essays on the city’s past, present and future from indie publisher The Double Negative – featuring daring new voices from the North-West, alongside acclaimed writers from the world’s biggest art magazines.

Talking about artists, collectives and venues including The Bluecoat, Between the Borders, Mohammad Bourouissa, Camp and Furnace, Banu Cennetoğlu, FACT, Barbara Hepworth, Homotopia, The Kazimier, Liverpool Biennial, Manifesta Biennial, MODEL Liverpool, OUTPUT Gallery, Queen of The Track, ROOT-ed, The Royal Standard, Tate and Tate Collective, Wu Tsang, John Walter and Richard Wilson.

Featuring new writing from Stephanie Bailey, Oliver Basciano, Jacob Bolton, Denise Courcoux, Mike Pinnington, Laura Robertson, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Eleanor Wiseman – produced under The Double Negative Fellowship 2018-19.

“The book contains writing that is upbeat, realistic, and honest about processes that bring positive and negative outcomes, provide opportunities but create divisions, and involve forces we should be wary of. This is like a beacon for those of us facing similar confusion and contradiction.” – Jill Howitt, editorial, The Critical Fish (Issue 2, November 2019)

“Can’t put it down or recommend it enough to anyone involved in the arts, especially NW… An emotive & informative little book cleverly composed by a diverse selection of contributors. I can’t imagine anywhere has my heart as an artist more than Liverpool.” – Jayne Simpson, artist and lecturer

“Present Tense – the title says it all. For anyone interested in the City of Culture phenomenon this publication is an essential read. It is the grass-root artist and curator speaking about their roles and experiences before, during and after Liverpool’s 2008 tenure as European Capital of Culture.” – Paul Collinson, artist

“For a city famous for punching above its weight, a book with a reach far beyond its 100 pages: Present Tense is a purposeful collection of voices that care…. about Liverpool, about art, and about cities of culture everywhere.” – Mark Sheerin, writer (Hyperallergic, The Arts Desk). Full review on Mark’s blog here

“This book is really very good! I love how it looks as well as the thoughtfulness of what it says. I’ve been telling everyone about it and I hope it gets a lot of recognition. It’s an unusually successful combination of art theory and deep rootedness in place, community and history.” – Dr Diana Jeater, Senior Lecturer in African History, University of Liverpool

Scroll down for a preview of the stories.

Read more about the book, and the authors’ journey through The Double Negative Fellowship.

Buy Present Tense (UK addresses, Signed For 2nd Class delivery, add £3):

Buy Present Tense (international addresses, Signed For 2nd Class delivery, add £9):

*Extra release of limited ‘pay what you can’ tickets available! All welcome! Wear comfy shoes!*

>>PRE-BOOKING ESSENTIAL ON EVENTBRITE, CLICK HERE<<

‘Perhaps public artworks are created knowing they will be relinquished to external forces: to the elements, to politics, and their publics…’

Join us for a relaxed, summer walk around Liverpool city centre’s key and most controversial public artworks, to celebrate the launch of our new book, Present Tense.

Inspired by Denise Courcoux’s Present Tense essay, ‘Finding Richard and Barbara: A Sculpture Walk’, we’ll visit several important, city centre artworks located between (and including) Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over (2007) and Barbara Hepworth’s Square with Two Circles (1964).

Hosted by Denise and The Double Negative co-founders, Mike Pinnington and Laura Robertson, we’ll attempt to understand why outdoor art is typically met with either immediate affection or horror; what effect this type of civic sculpture has on passersby; and how these works evolve after years of weathering, urban renewal and fashion.

Our walk will conclude at one of Liverpool’s historic pubs near Moorfields Train Station, so we can reflect on what we’ve seen over a drink or two.

More about our new book:

Summer Sculpture Walk donations of £20+ include a signed copy of Present Tense: a collection of essays by some of the UK’s most exciting writers, commenting on tensions in the fields of art and culture. It takes as a starting point the celebrations in 2018 that marked a decade of Liverpool’s status as European Capital of Culture.

Talking about artists, collectives and venues including The Bluecoat, Between the Borders, Mohammad Bourouissa, Camp and Furnace, Banu Cennetoğlu, FACT, Barbara Hepworth, Homotopia, The Kazimier, Liverpool Biennial, Manifesta Biennial, MODEL Liverpool, OUTPUT Gallery, Queen of The Track, ROOT-ed, The Royal Standard, Tate and Tate Collective, Wu Tsang, John Walter and Richard Wilson.

Featuring new writing from Stephanie Bailey, Oliver Basciano, Jacob Bolton, Denise Courcoux, Mike Pinnington, Laura Robertson, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Eleanor Wiseman – produced under The Double Negative Fellowship 2018-19.

More about us:

The Double Negative magazine was co-founded in a post-Capital of Culture Liverpool, UK, by then culture journalist Mike Pinnington and artist/curator Laura Robertson.

Liverpool, it seemed, had attained a level of creative maturity – across various disciplines – that meant its output deserved increased levels of comment and criticism. Indeed, it needed those things. The Double Negative was a reaction: a means of analysing what we loved (and what we thought could be better) in contemporary arts, design, film and music. We especially wanted to highlight artists, projects and venues that were flying under the radar in Liverpool and more widely across the North of England.

Now, we’ve grown our ranks to more than 500 contributors based all over the UK and across the world, and we write for the world’s top arts and culture publications — including ArtReview, Frieze, Art Monthly, Elephant, Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, a-n, Art Quarterly, the Guardian, Tate Online and more.

However, our aim is the same: to tell the stories that matter most to us. We have a particular investment in encouraging and developing the next generation of art writers. We believe it is incredibly important to offer platforms for fearless, well-researched and balanced criticism, which represents a wide range of voices, subjects and stories.

Laura Robertson

>>PRE-BOOKING ESSENTIAL ON EVENTBRITE, CLICK HERE<<

Read more about the book, and the authors’ journey through The Double Negative Fellowship.

In our latest Kickstarter update, we share the story behind the book – including a sneaky peek of (drumroll…) the contents!

The brief

The brief for Present Tense was simple: consider what Liverpool’s status as European Capital means today. Our writers could look at any aspect of the city’s culture: it’s artists, past and present; the cultural organisations, collectives and projects that have made the scene what it is; its fascinating history pre- Tate and post-Biennial; and what they thought might be the impact of a Capital of Culture award, from the macro to the micro.

The resulting essays are reflective of Liverpool’s complex evolution as a cultural city, while also being critical and honest about the challenges it has faced and still faces today. As you can see from each synopsis, the paths the writers chose to follow are wildly different.

Sneaky peek: contents

Present Tense

Laura Robertson and Mike Pinnington in conversation

Use the City!

The language we use around culture is still predicated on viewership and reception. We talk of visitors, ‘private views’ (a poisonous phrase soaked in exclusion and subjugation), previews, ‘the public’. We could learn a lot from the vocabulary of the internet.

By Jacob Bolton

Define Your Heroes by Your Enemies

Those that attacked Banu Cennetoğlu’s The List did so not just because they hate refugees (though they clearly do), but also because they hate art.

By Oliver Basciano

Finding Richard and Barbara: A Sculpture Walk

Playing tourist in your own territory by navigating outdoor artwork at opposite ends of town: Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over – conceived of as a spectacular curtain-raiser for Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture 2008 – and Barbara Hepworth’s Square with Two Circles, 1964

By Denise Courcoux

Now, Then and Tomorrow: A Postcard From Liverpool

An overview of urban regeneration through art and culture

By Mike Pinnington

On John Walter 

Walter on his carnivalesque 2015 project Alien Sex Club, which the author curated in London and across Liverpool at Camp and Furnace, the Walker Art Gallery and the Bluecoat, as part of Homotopia Festival

By Ellen Mara De Wachter

Zine Scene Meets Art Scene

As a means of bringing together uncensored writing and art in order to distribute them to a like-minded community, zines have a strong countercultural history. Is this why, over the past ten years, galleries have increasingly incorporated zine culture into their curatorial remit?

By Eleanor Wiseman

Palermo and Liverpool: between one garden and another

Considering radical agriculture through Liverpool Biennial’s Beautiful World Where Are You? and Manifesta 12’s Planetary Garden: Cultivating Co-existence, 2018

By Stephanie Bailey 

The Winner Takes It All?

When 23 British and European artists visited Liverpool in 2008, they argued that the Capital of Culture award was a sticking plaster for economic woes, and that it was altogether irrelevant. What’s changed? A re-staging of the debate hosted by The Royal Standard and Red Wire Studios

By Laura Robertson

Just a taste…

If you like the look of our essays and haven’t become a patron yet, please don’t hesitate to preorder a copy of Present Tense today!

If you’re already a patron (THANK YOU!!!), please do spread the word, shout and scream, and recommend Present Tense to friends and family.

We only have until SUNDAY 12 MAY 2019 to reach our goal! All proceeds go directly to print and design. So we really do need all the help we can get in order to get the book into your hands.

Thanks so much to everyone who has donated so far.

Laura Robertson and Mike Pinnington

CLICK HERE TO PREORDER PRESENT TENSE NOW ON KICKSTARTER… And help us to bring our book to life! 

A decade since Liverpool European Capital of Culture… What now? Present Tense: a book of new essays from some of the UK’s most exciting writers. Available to preorder now on Kickstarter!

What is the Present Tense book about?

Present Tense is a collection of essays by some of the UK’s most exciting writers, commenting on tensions in the fields of art and culture. It takes as a starting point the celebrations in 2018 that marked a decade of Liverpool’s status as European Capital of Culture. We asked six writers to reflect on the ten years, while not being tied to the past.

Present Tense asks:

• What do we define as the culture around us? Who are the stakeholders? Who chooses?
• What does it mean when an artwork is repeatedly and violently destroyed, especially if that artwork is about the global refugee crisis?
• How does a city like Liverpool understand, and make peace with, a European Capital of Culture award during Brexit negotiations?
• What becomes of ambitious outdoor sculpture that, years after being commissioned, is unloved and neglected?
• What are the consequences of a cultural award on individuals: the people that imagine, make and deliver that ‘culture’?

These essays have something to say about now and the future, while not forgetting what has come before, and what can be learned. This is Present Tense, a book from The Double Negative, and we’d love you to support it.

Featuring new writing from Stephanie Bailey, Oliver Basciano, Jacob Bolton, Denise Courcoux, Mike Pinnington, Laura Robertson, Ellen Mara De Wachter and Eleanor Wiseman – produced under The Double Negative Fellowship 2018-19.

Talking about artists, collectives and venues including The Bluecoat, Between the Borders, Mohammad Bourouissa, Camp and Furnace, Banu Cennetoğlu, FACT, Barbara Hepworth, Homotopia, The Kazimier, Liverpool Biennial, Manifesta Biennial, MODEL Liverpool, OUTPUT Gallery, Queen of The Track, ROOT-ed, The Royal Standard, Tate and Tate Collective, Wu Tsang, John Walter and Richard Wilson.

We mainly publish online… So why do we care about printing a book?

Printing books can be expensive. But as a predominantly online magazine, it’s really important to us that we:

• Get new writing into new hands
• Complement what we already publish online with high quality print
• Make something tangible that can be read again and again
• Give our writers an extra printed outlet for their work that they can share with family, friends, peers and YOU, the reader.

We have already commissioned all of the new writing in Present Tense (thanks Arts Council England!). But instead of simply publishing the texts online at thedoublenegative.co.uk, we would LOVE to print them all in a book – stories you can hold in your hand and keep forever.

Why support Present Tense? 

Since the very start, The Double Negative has commissioned, published, edited and shared skills with the next generation of arts writers. Over the past several years, we’ve worked with hundreds of writers across the UK and Europe, publishing them online and in our first book, On Being Curious: New Critical Writing on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England. We give clear and constructive editorial feedback; connect writers with other publications and networks; and provide writing classes and critical writing bursaries. We’re always teaming up with like-minded organisations to make this happen, as the latter two are often only achievable with the financial and logistical help of other partners.

It’s difficult running The Double Negative with only two people at the helm, but we have a lot of friends who believe in what we do and are keen to collaborate! Preordering your copy of Present Tense will help us to continue nurturing new critical voices.

Why did The Double Negative Fellowship commission the essays?

All the new writing in this new book has been commissioned under The Double Negative Fellowship 2018-19: a mentoring programme for three, Liverpool-based writers. Jacob Bolton, Denise Courcoux and Eleanor Wiseman were encouraged, challenged and championed by mentors at the top of their game – ArtReview International Editor and Turner Prize Juror Oliver Basciano, Ocula Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Bailey, and writer and curator Ellen Mara De Wachter. Our other mentor, Frieze magazine’s Editorial Director Jennifer Higgie, has been giving us gold standard advice from the very start – she even led a writing bootcamp for us and twenty other writers last year!

The Fellowship was only made possible through funding from Arts Council England, alongside financial and in-kind support from CreArt (Network of Cities for Artistic Creation), Culture Liverpool, Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW), Heart of Glass, History of Art at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Biennial, and the University of Salford Art Collection.

Aside from being excellent critical and reflective essays on Liverpool’s art scene, they have also served as a part of the mentoring (and learning) process for our mentees; discussed and critiqued by the mentors from initial idea to final draft.

We don’t have production costs covered for a printed book, so that’s why we’re using Kickstarter; to crowdfund Present Tense and make it something that the community has endorsed. We think that new writing deserves to be published – we can all relate to the ideas in this book – so we really would love your help to make Present Tense a reality.

Who are we?

The Double Negative is an online art, design, film and music magazine, established in 2011.

The Double Negative was conceived and co-founded in a post-Capital of Culture Liverpool, UK, by then culture journalist Mike Pinnington and artist/curator Laura Robertson.

Liverpool, it seemed, had attained a level of creative maturity – across various disciplines – that meant its output deserved increased levels of comment and criticism. Indeed, it needed those things. The Double Negative was a reaction: a means of analysing what we loved (and what we thought could be better) in contemporary arts, design, film and music. We especially wanted to highlight artists, projects and venues that were flying under the radar in Liverpool and more widely across the North of England.

Now, we’ve grown our ranks to more than 500 contributors based all over the UK and across the world, and we write for the world’s top arts and culture publications — including ArtReview, Frieze, Art Monthly, Elephant, Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, a-n,  Art Quarterly, the Guardian, Tate Online and more.

However, our aim is the same: to tell the stories that matter most to us. We have a particular investment in encouraging and developing the next generation of art writers. We believe it is incredibly important to offer platforms for fearless, well-researched and balanced criticism, which represents a wide range of voices, subjects and stories.

Biographies:

Stephanie Bailey is Ocula Editor-in-Chief, a contributing editor to ART PAPERS and LEAP, and the current curator of Conversations at Art Basel in Hong Kong. A member of the Naked Punch editorial committee and managing editor of Podium, the online journal for M+ Museum in Hong Kong, she also writes regularly for Artforum International, Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, and D’ivan, A Journal of Accounts. From 2012 to 2017, she was managing editor and senior editor of Ibraaz.

ocula.com 

TW: @SBRetweets 

Oliver Basciano is a writer and critic based in London. He is International Editor at ArtReview and contributes to the news, arts and obituary desks of the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. His writing has appeared in the Calvert Journal, Spike Art Quarterly, Building Design, Architects’ Journal, Wallpaper, as well as numerous artist’s monographs, and he has contributed to BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, The Last Word and From Our Own Correspondent. He was a juror for the 2018 Turner Prize.

clippings.me/oliverbasciano 

TW: @olibasciano 

Jacob Bolton writes, designs, and makes art. His writing has appeared in ArtReview, Eye on Design and Corridor8, and his visual work has been featured in Brighton Photo Fringe. He is especially interested in on- and offline spaces and how they work together, power dynamics on the internet, and urban infrastructure.

TW: @bacobjolton

Denise Courcoux is a writer from Coventry, based in Merseyside, UK. She has been published online by The Double Negative, Corridor8 and The University of Manchester’s Institute for Cultural Practices. Her interests include issues of class and representation, popular culture in visual art and artist-curators. She has an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies, and won Axisweb’s MA Curated Selection prize in 2014. She has worked in various museums and galleries in the North West.

TW: @denisecourcoux

Mike Pinnington is a writer based in Liverpool and the co-founder and full-time editor of The Double Negative. He has been published most recently by Art Quarterly, Art Review, Ocula and byNWR. From 2013-2018 he held the role of Content Editor at Tate Liverpool, working with the exhibitions and communications teams to deliver interpretation across the galleries, web content, and an in-house zine, Compass.

thedoublenegative.co.uk

TW: @doublenegativeM

Laura Robertson is a writer based in Liverpool and London, and the co-founder and contributing editor at The Double Negative online magazine. She has been published in international magazines Frieze, Elephant, Hyperallergic, Art Monthly, ArtReview and a-n amongst others; is a is currently the critical writer-in-residence at Open Eye Gallery, alongside studying MA Writing at the Royal College of Art (2018-20). She is a former director of The Royal Standard Gallery & Studios.

thedoublenegative.co.uk

TW: @doublenegativeL

Ellen Mara De Wachter is a writer and curator based in London, and has worked at arts organisations including the British Museum, Barbican Art Gallery and Contemporary Art Society. She is a frequent contributor to publications including Frieze magazine, Art Monthly and Art Quarterly as well as exhibition catalogues. Her book Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration, published by Phaidon, explores the phenomenon of collaboration in the visual arts and its potential in society at large. She is an Associate Lecturer in Culture, Criticism and Curating at Central Saint Martins.

ellenmaradewachter.com 

TW: @EMDeWachter

Eleanor Wiseman is a freelance writer, zinester, and single mama who relocated to Glasgow in 2019 after five years in Liverpool. She is a History of Art graduate and the creator of Grrrls In Their Underwear Zine. She has particular interests in the intersection of grass-root movements, body politics, and independent publishing. Her reviews have been published in Ocula and The Double Negative, while her poetry has been featured in Little Red Tarot, Fist Zine, as well as her own self-published chapbook.

ellieandart.wordpress.com 

TW: @by_eleanorw 

What’s our plan and budget?

We need to raise £4730 in order to make the best book that we can! A limited edition book that is well-edited, well-designed, enjoyable to read, and pays everyone involved fairly. We’re very well prepared:

• our long-term collaborator and friend, Mike Carney, is the designer of Present Tense. You’ve already witnessed the book’s attitude from his bold visuals, above! Mike has been designing books, brochures, catalogues, newspapers, magazines, identities and logos for over twenty years. He worked with us on The Double Negative’s visual concept, as well as our first in-house book, On Being Curious. He’s amazing.
• we (Laura and Mike) have eighteen years experience between us in commissioning and editing writers, and writing articles for national and international magazines (print and online), culture guides, catalogue essays, gallery/museum interpretation and directly for artists. Meeting deadlines and copy editing (to a very high standard) are two of the things we do best.

We’re very confident that we’ll be able to deliver Present Tense if we can crowdfund the following:

• Printing costs (x 250 A5 books) = 37%
• Design fee = 32%
• Copyediting = 21%
• Kickstarter and payment fees = 10%
• Writers’ fees (got it covered) = 0%.

Any contribution you can make that will help us to reach our target would mean bringing this great collection of writing to life! Your support really is appreciated.

New to Kickstarter? How this all works

Funding on Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. No one will be charged for a pledge towards Present Tense unless it reaches its funding goal. This way, we’ll have the budget scoped out before moving forward. No one will be charged for a pledge unless Present Tense reaches its funding goal in 30 days time. If we don’t reach our goal by the end of the campaign date, you won’t be charged, and Present Tense won’t happen… If we DO reach our goal (like we hope to!), everyone gets their books, rewards and the project comes to life.

Shipping

We are shipping Present Tense worldwide! The Double Negative has international readers – from our core demographic in the British Isles, to LA to Berlin to Sydney – that we know are interested in contemporary art, culture and Liverpool. We don’t want anyone to miss out.

Select your reward option and your location, and Kickstarter will automatically calculate the shipping for you.

We’ve using tried and tested shipping methods (Signed For® 2nd Class, UK, and International Tracked & Signed) to make sure you receive your book securely and on time. Present Tense and special Kickstarter rewards will ship during August 2019.

CLICK HERE TO PREORDER PRESENT TENSE NOW ON KICKSTARTER… And help us to bring our book to life! 

Read more about the authors’ journey through The Double Negative Fellowship.

As his his first UK solo exhibition of photography, Wake Up Together, draws to a close, Laura Robertson takes another look at Ren Hang…

What do you see when you look at Ren Hang’s portraits?

I see people at ease with their sexuality, first and foremost. Touching, licking, sucking toes; spitting and pissing while making eye contact with the camera (and us). They’re confident. They make me think about my own skin and the heat of the person next to me, but also they don’t. Ren Hang’s naked bodies are far away, thanks to the illumination of the camera flash, the white bed sheets and wet tiles, and the 2D, printed image behind glass or between magazine pages.

Ren Hang (1987-2017) had a great sense of mischief. He and his friends, his models, staged contortions of gymnastic ambition. Upside-down bums squirt liquid at flowers; they sit in a line, making one many-limbed goddess; buttocks are lifted high and legs are used as sun shades. One sits on a swing made from two bound men. Props enhance the shape and texture of the body: women peek through fish mouths, braid octopus tentacles into hair. His subjects are not submissive, rather complicit with being photographed. “I usually shoot my friends” Ren Hang said, “because strangers make me nervous.” He would not go through with an idea for choreography if all involved weren’t in absolute agreement. The intimacy he gains from these decisions is more than a sexual one. The gaze veers from deep thought to defiance, depending on the setting; his friends are all young and beautiful, forever. We all want to be this alive and this loved.

Those that fleetingly encounter Ren Hang’s work — In Vogue, in Harper’s Bazaar — might initially conclude from the earnest, carpe diem-tone that this is simply surface. Upon closer inspection, they lay bare a sincere desire for change and acceptance, for liberty and equal rights in China and everywhere. That’s why they’re so relatable. As well as being an astonishingly talented photographer, Ren also happened to be a gay man, and suffered from crippling depression. The illness eventually killed him at the age of 29. There were times when he felt acutely alone.

His friends were his family. Moving to Beijing when he was just 17, he started to take pictures of his roommates with a cheap camera, a Minolta Freedom (currently on sale at eBay for £12). Photography became an outlet for expression, for fun, for creative play. It also became a subversive act; outdoor nudity violates Chinese obscenity laws, so his photographs had to be taken behind closed doors, or at night in woodland, at lakesides and on rooftops.

In practical terms, this meant that public presentations of his work were dangerous. His exhibitions were shut down by police. He’d replace censored photographs with empty frames. Some were returned covered in spit. Can you imagine the bravery and persistence that was needed? “True freedom”, he said, “should be forgetting the concept of freedom.”

Freedom, nonetheless, was contested and restricted. Despite the harassment at home, and international commissions from magazines and galleries, Ren Hang remained in China. To the end, he wanted his own country to accept him for who he was and what he did.

Given the political situation, Ren didn’t define himself as an artist. He didn’t “have to photograph to live”. He liked to play pool, mahjong, go out to eat. He was also a gifted writer. His blog, an extraordinary series of candid diary entries, is a dizzying, almost unbearable, account of mental illness, shame and anxiety. In it, Ren says he is a “disappointing person”, sometimes unable to leave the house and worried that his friends will find out “how shallow I am”.

It is also imbued with naughtiness, as his poem ‘Each time I did something bad’ demonstrates:

Yesterday I being in the supermarket

Stole a tube of toothpaste

Day before yesterday with gun

Plugged up the neighbour’s keyhole

Last week flipped over

at the park’s gate

The full row of trash cans

From the building entrance

Each time I did something bad

Already it felt like life

Returned to better some.

Ren Hang’s work makes me feel less alone. Portraits can communicate a lot, as currently demonstrated at Open Eye Gallery, who are exhibiting his first UK solo show, Wake Up Together, alongside Where Love is Illegal by Robin Hammond. In commune with each other, both exhibitions inspire great empathy. The people in the photographs will never know me and I’ll never know them. But this amatory set of images carry an enormous cultural and contextual weight, namely the desire to be recoginised, to be seen and to be loved.

Laura Robertson

See Wake Up Together at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, until 17 February 2019 — FREE. Part of Homotopia Festival 

Read Laura’s response to Ren Hang’s diaries, I Just Want to Lie Down, written for Open Eye Gallery

Images from top: Untitled, Ren Hang, 2016. Courtesy of Stieglitz19, Belgium; installation shot courtesy Scott Charlesworth for Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, 2018

Ren Hang poem translated by friend and collaborator Ho King Man, Word or Two, 2017, BHKM press