Culture Diary w/c 24-03-2025
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – 8½ 5pm @ FACT Liverpool –£8.50
Fellini’s film about filmmaking, 8½ finds Marcello Mastroianni’s blocked Guido wrestling with his directorial career. A self-referential triumph, it is considered one of the greatest commentaries on film ever committed to, well, film.
Tuesday – Exhibition Continues: Graham Crowley: I Paint Shadows @ the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
John Moores Painting Prize winner Graham Crowley first showed at the Walker in 1976, having found inspiration there as a young artist earlier in the decade. Crowley, who has said: “I paint shadows. Light fascinates me…” has now returned to the gallery with this aptly titled solo show. Call for entries for this year’s John Moores Painting Prize close 5pm, 24 March.
Exhibition Continues: No Iconic Images @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
A show asking pertinent questions of photojournalism – ‘What images of conflicts do we need? Do we believe in what we see?’ – No Iconic Images: Views of War, arrives at a time during which conflict rages everywhere you care to look. Once considered crucial in bringing the visual story to the eyes of the wider world, the exhibition interrogates conflict’s portrayal, and what, in today’s climate of proliferation, saturation and desensitisation, can possibly cut through to reach picture editors, audiences and politicians alike.
Dig! XX 7.15pm @ FACT Liverpool – £14
Winner of the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Dig! is the real life story of friendship and professional rivalry between Portland bands The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and their leaders Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Anton Newcombe. Filmmaker Ondi Timoner set out wanting to explore the scene they were in the vanguard of and ended up with one of the best music docs ever committed to film. For this 20th anniversary release, Dig! has been augmented with 40mins additional footage and new commentary (from BJM’s Joel Gion), for this extended one-off screening.
From the archive: The Big Interview: Anton Newcombe
Wednesday – Meet the Artist: Chris Shaw 6.30pm @ Tate Liverpool – £5/£3
Chris Shaw’s photographs make for a compelling introduction to the current Tate Liverpool exhibition, The Plant That Stowed Away, the title of which is drawn from the annotated series: I see no ships but the plant that stowed away. Catch the photographer in conversation this evening with Dr Christine Eyene on Shaw’s Weeds of Wallasey, the agency of plants, and maritime Liverpool.
Warpaint – Women at War + Recorded Q&A 7.50pm @ FACT Liverpool – £14
Margy Kinmonth has, quietly, steadfastly, and for some time, been exploring the lives of those in and around art. From Eric Ravilious to art in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, the director-producer has an eye for the story between the lines, which she has now turned to a female perspective on the frontline.
From the archive: Revolution: New Art For A New World
Thursday – Exhibition Opening: Interlude 6pm @ The Royal Standard, Liverpool – FREE
Group exhibition from Liverpool-based artist trio, Marginalia. Featuring: Jessie Birkett, whose work incorporates mythologies and the sublime; painter, India Clarke; Marginalia collective founder, writer-artist Elodie Horsewell; multidisciplinary installation artist, Ren Yeates Black; collagist Erin Shawe; and Beatrice Gillard.
Friday – In Conversation: Landlines Studio 6pm @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead – FREE
With Un/Earthed, Angela Stringer and Nicky Perrin – collectively, Landlines Studio – address and explore the alchemy and storytelling potential of the land. Join the artist duo this evening to hear about their process, inspirations, themes and retrospective exhibition, on display at the Williamson until 30 June.
Tribute to Max Richter 7pm @ the Tung Auditorium, Liverpool – £20-£35
Whether you realise it or not, neo-classical composer Max Richter has elevated many a film and TV show – from Shutter Island and Arrival to Black Mirror, The Leftovers, and Bridgerton of all things. Indeed, for a while there, his Blue Notebooks was ubiquitous. Lending a gravitas such productions mightn’t realise alone, it is unsurprising that Richter is now subject to tributes such as this by Mystery Ensemble, who bring his interpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Season’s to the Tung. Stellar stuff.
Saturday – Eraserhead 8.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8.50
David Lynch’s debut feature, Eraserhead announced a remarkable new voice in Western Cinema. It is a darkly surreal vision of a film, which continues to intrigue almost half a century after its release.
From the archive: The Death of America: David Lynch’s My Head is Disconnected
Sunday – John Cale 7.30pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic Hall £35-£52
What is there left to say about John Cale? Born of Welsh mining stock; maverick composer and viola player; founder member of The Velvet Underground; producer of Nico’s best records; solo artist. Now 83, the previous two years have seen Cale release a pair of very well-received new records, the latter of which – POPtical Illusion – he’s currently touring. What is there left to say about Cale? There’s life in the avant-garde dog yet.
Mike Pinnington
Images/media, from top: 8 1/2 trailer; Dig! XX trailer; Chris Shaw, Weeds of Wallasey, 2007-12 © Chris Shaw; Warpaint – Women at War trailer; Mystery Ensemble trailer; Eraserhead trailer; Homepage: Raymond and his sons. Raymond Hubbard lost his leg in Baghdad on July 4, 2006, when a Russian-made 122 mm rocket crashed twenty feet from the guard post where he was stationed. Darien, Wisconsin, USA, 2007 © Peter van Agtmael / Magnum Photos
