Culture Diary w/c 05-08-2024
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – Exhibition Continues: Brickworks @ Tate Liverpool + RIBA North – FREE
“From breeze blocks to dry stone walls, discover artworks that champion the humble brick.” The new exhibition at Tate Liverpool doesn’t exactly scream must-see show, but Brickworks, pictured above, confounds similarly humble expectations. It does so by using some smart selections from the Tate collection; from Kader Attia’s imposing centrepiece, Untitled (Concrete Blocks), to Chris Killip’s bleak Windowless Terrace by way of Saloua Raouda Choucair’s elegant modular Poem Wall, it prods us to ponder – in unusual detail – the meanings imbued in and by that most ubiquitous of building materials.
My Neighbour Totoro 5.40pm @ FACT – £8
One of Studio Ghibli’s most charming, yet perilous-feeling creations, My Neighbour Totoro follows sisters Satsuki and Mei as they navigate a move of house with Dad. With Mum struggling to recover from an unnamed illness in a nearby hospital, the girls’ new friend O-Totoro opens up a mystical world of benevolent spirits and real-life trauma. Deservedly one of the best-loved animations from director Hayao Miyazaki, or anybody else, My Neighbour Totoro is back in cinemas now.
Tuesday – Sara Sadik Artist Tour & Screening 6.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – FREE
There’s much to like about the current, decidedly pink, XENON PALACE CHAMPIONSHIP (2023) that greets you on arrival at FACT. Blending gaming, fiction and empowering haven, it succeeds in creating a tactile, cocooning hang-out space. Join the artist tonight for an out-of-hours tour of the work and screening of a selection of her previous films. Sadik returns tomorrow afternoon to deliver a creative practice masterclass.
Wednesday – Exhibition Continues: Into the Wyld @ Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead – FREE
Into the Wyld, which opened last week, marks the beginning of a major artistic exploration of the medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In it, the Knight of the title does battle with assorted beasts, nature and the elements in the ‘Wilderness of Wirral’: a key tenet of this staggered, three-pronged programme of exhibitions and events. First interrogating nature (until 13 September, curated by Patric Rogers), followed by chivalry (19 September – 25 October) and spirituality (7 November – 21 December), the festival promises a mélange of artists, approaches and thinking as it tackles the Middle-English masterpiece.
Meet the Artist: Signe Johannessen 6.30pm @ Tate Liverpool + RIBA – £5
Rightly, key themes currently occupying contemporary art and artists include the climate crisis and, more broadly, our relationship with our home, Earth. Tonight sees Norwegian artist, Signe Johannessen (above), and filmmaker Helen Kilbride discuss how, through creative endeavours, we might provoke greater urgency towards an increasingly dire, real-time situation, while also offering solutions to forestall the seemingly approaching dystopia.
Thursday – Paris, Texas 4pm @ FACT Liverpool – £12.90
“Travis, hey, have you seen Jane, or talked to her? We thought you were dead, boy!” Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas finds a dazed and confused Travis Henderson wander out of the desert into a deepening mystery. In an all too rare lead role, the great Harry Dean Stanton plays Travis, reunited first with his brother (Dean Stockwell), and then – in unsettling fashion – with Jane, his perplexed wife (Nastassja Kinski), and their son.
Friday – It Came From Outer Space 6.15pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8
“It’s coming right at you!”, screams the trailer for It Came From Outer Space, as a blazing unidentified flying object threatens to tear through the fourth wall of the screen. Expect ‘terror’, ‘suspense’ and – above all – ‘all powerful creatures’ from this 1950s Sci-Fi classic, back in cinemas from today.
Saturday – Exhibition Opening: Anish Kapoor: Monadic Singularity @ Liverpool Cathedral – FREE
Last seen in a major show in the city more than 40 years ago, this week marks something of a coup for Liverpool Cathedral as they unveil Monadic Singularity, a new exhibition of sculptor and conceptual artist Anish Kapoor’s works. Timed to commemorate the centenary of the cathedral’s Consecration in 1924, the exhibition includes works – amongst them, Sectional Body Preparing for Monadic Singularity (2015) – from the last 25 years of the artist’s career. Curator Elisa Nocente said: “As one of the leading figures in contemporary art, [Kapoor's is] a unique visual language that embraces painting, sculpture, and architectural forms.”
Sunday – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 5pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Smug, self-centred and arrogant, if you came across Ferris Bueller irl, you’d likely hate him, maybe wanna wipe that conceited look off his face. But it’s hard not to be swept up in Ferris’ world, as he bunks off school with best mate Cameron and beau Sloane (played by Mia Sara). The titular day takes in a baseball game at Wrigley Field, a parade (in which Ferris, of course, plays a memorable, impromptu starring role) and a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, where Ted Hughes’ camera lingers longingly and reverentially over masterpiece after masterpiece. For once, Ferris is quiet.
Mike Pinnington
Images, from top: Kader Attia, “Untitled” (Concrete Blocks) 2008 © Kader Attia Installation view. © Tate (Sam Day); Sara Sadik install photography, FACT © Rob Battersby; Signe Johannessen © Gert Germeraad; Anish Kapoor, Sectional Body Preparing for Monadic Singularity, 2015. Photo: D.Saulnier, Interior view: Jonathan Leijonhufvud. © Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, DACS 2024.
