Art in Liverpool Magazine, issue #21, February 2020

Issue #12 - February 2019 News, Reviews & What’s On. Your monthly update on visual art in the Liverpool City Region

Cover Image: Geografia Espejo (Under the noise and Fury), 2015, Victor Hugo Martin Caballero, part of Six Memos a European CreArt Exhibition at St George’s Hall. photo credit: Adam Lee

The Knowsley Open Art and Young Artists Open is an annual exhibition which showcases visual art created

by Knowsley artists. This year we are holding our first ‘Affordable Art Auction’ at the end of the exhibition.

This is a great opportunity to purchase an original artwork from the auction, which also features work donated by our artist friends including: Willy Russell, Mike Kirby, Philip Garrett, Gill Cowley, Anthony Ratcliffe, Paul Romano – to name but a few.

The auction will take place on: Thursday 9 May, 5-8pm and will be overseen by auctioneer Adam Partridge, as seen on TV programmes such as Bargain Hunt.

Both the Private View and Auction are RSVP only events, so if you would like to attend please book a place: tina.ball@knowsley.gov.uk Tel: 0151 443 4936

Art in Liverpool magazine is a monthly newspaper promoting visual art across the Liverpool City Region.

Art in Liverpool, issue #12, February 2019

Published by Art in Liverpool C.I.C. and written by contributions from our partners, supporters and most importantly, volunteer writers, who add a unique voice to arts writing in the UK, thinking differently about what actually matters to people visiting galleries.

With issue #1 published in March 2018 we’ve got a lot of growing to do, and if you want to be part of that, get in touch: info@artinliverpool.com Equally, we’re here to support galleries and creative spaces, so make sure to keep us up to date about your events at least two weeks in advance of each issue.

If you’d like even more of a presence in the magazine we have advertising available every month, and take bookings well in advance. For details on pricing and deadlines contact Patrick: patrick@artinliverpool.com

South Stacks, Anglesea. by Huw Lewis-Jones, on display as part of Welsh Landscapes at dot-art until 2nd March 2019

This time last year, we were starting to phone our first round of advertisers, and costing up printers around the region.

Today, we’re going to print with our twelfth issue, having, I hope, made it very clear that Art in Liverpool is here in equal measure, for our readers, and the artists of the city region.

In no way was the task of keeping the magazine afloat easy, it’s been tough at the best of times, but always enjoyable, and the feedback from artists, galleries and readers, as well as the cafes where they’re most often read, has made it worth it.

issue #12, February 2019 Editor: Patrick Kirk-Smith Contributors: Kathryn Wainwright With thanks to: Adam Lee, Bluecoat, Lady Lever Art Gallery & Kirkby Gallery for orginial images Advertising, sponsorship, distribution, stocking & event enquiries should be sent to info@artinliverpool.com Art in Liverpool C.I.C. Company No. 10871320

There was something though that didn’t quite add up. In the fifteen years that Art in Liverpool has existed online, it has made a point of working evenly with artists and galleries, big and small. Our events listings have always been free. The news and reviews section work with artists at every level of their career to give a clear insight into the landscape of visual art in the region. And we’ve never charged a penny for any of it.

The magazine, as print tends to do, costs money, and that has been covered by the generosity and support of advertisers, well beyond their concrete or financial contributions to the paper. This has though, created one of the most important bits of feedback – where festivals and galleries can afford to promote their services artists, as individuals, have been priced out of the ad space.

So we’ve changed it up a bit. From this issue onwards, we are hoping that a classifieds page will fill that void, exclusively available to artists, makers and small groups of creative people to promote what they do – whether that’s selling their work, or teaching others, it reaches more people that the text listings and gives them space to curate their own thoughts. So as a reader, I would strongly urge you to browse the classifieds, where you’ll find exclusively local artists sharing their own news.

Serendipity has played a big part in how these issues have been curated too, with themes emerging naturally through the events of the city. This month, while we put our heads down and worked out how to level the playing field in our pages, Bluecoat, dot-art, Kirkby Gallery and Bluecoat Display Centre have all had similar focusses.

At Bluecoat, perhaps the most powerful in this respect, is the Art Schools of North West England, an exhibition of information, more a statement from the gallery than anything else, on the lack of real and valuable creative opportunities to those artists not afforded the luxury of opportunity on their doorstep. Where at the Display Centre, artists at all stages of their career are merged together under one title, one price tag and one goal; to celebrate sixty years of one of the most supportive and developmental galleries in the city to artists’ careers.

Kirkby Gallery’s Open, which opens in a couple of weeks, is one of the first examples I’ve seen in a long time, of an open exhibition giving more than just wall space to their entrants. I’ll not go into much detail here, but there’s an article focussing on their new approach to the Open later on.

And at dot-art, the focus is on three artists making work that indulges local history and regional pride looking at the Welsh landscape on our doorstep.

There is a lot to be said for keeping art local, and it doesn’t work by itself. It needs the infrastructure of internationally significant events, feeds off them even. Liverpool Biennial being one of the best examples, where events like Independents Biennial happen alongside them, or last year’s exhibitions and installations alongside Tall Ships. When you dig deeper into those huge events though, some of the most beneficial things are from the local artists, working with local communities, whose work might be small, and unseen, but whose comment is worth a thousand Giants.

Six Memos (on art and writing); Italo Calvino’s future becomes reality on display at St George’s Hall

Six Memos is an exhibition of twenty artists from the European CreArt Network, one of the last ongoing European art projects with Liverpool.

Geografia Espejo (Under the noise and Fury), 2015, Victor Hugo Martin Caballero. photo credit: Adam Lee

Italo Calvino’s essay, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, is one of the most influentially significant works of literature of the 20th Century, but no one really knows it, and most don’t know him as a novelist either. So an exhibition of artists from all over Europe coming together to reflect on his work was always going to need some explaining. To the point that Olivia Walker, Exhibition Manager for Six Memos produced the following statement [italics, left column] as a hand out to give visitors a breakdown of where the artists were coming from.

The Quick and Handy Guide to Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium and the CreArt exhibition Six Memos

Dialogues (no2), 2018, Tjasa Kalkan. photo credit: Adam Lee

In 1985, Italian novelist Italo Calvino was due to deliver a series of lectures at Harvard University outlining his vision for the future of literature. He died before the series was delivered, with the last lecture left unwritten. In 1988, the five completed works were published as a collection of essays entitled Six Memos for the Next Millennium.

Against that, I’ve tried to break down the exhibition for myself, as a Calvino first timer with a mild recollection of the essays from University [right column]. The outcome might not be wholly reflective, but that’s the joy of the exhibition – it’s from a slightly academic perspective, but as a result represents the different strengths of academia across Europe. Where in the UK we might find a stifled creative education, held back by the tension between attainment and creativity, across Europe, attainment is based in production rather than ideas, and justifying creativity isn’t so high on the agenda. In simpler terms, academia isn’t quite so academic elsewhere.

Calvino reflects on the future of writing rather than the future of visual art, but the relevance is possibly more important than it first appears.

In 2019, unrelated artists from eight European cities set out to evidence six strands of an idea by Italo Calvino. The ideas they focus on are Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity and Consistency.

All six essays could most succinctly, in today’s English, be described as readability and legibility. One, historically the role of the writer, the other, of the artist. Today, both artist and writer have an equal part in telling a story in a way where visual and mental images live side by side.

In 2019, thirty-one years on from the publication of Calvino’s essays, what is clearer than anything else in this exhibition is that rather than representing the ideas of Calvino, they translate them into the present day.

In the following few paragraphs I’m hoping not to talk in too much detail about individual works in the show, but instead reflect on their ability to accurately describe Calvino’s original points that inspired them.

The values Calvino outlines are as follows: •

Lightness

When Calvino talks about “Lightness” he is referring to the ability to remove unnecessary complications so that the essential idea can emerge, without stripping an idea back so much that it loses its substance.

•

Lightness

Victor Hugo Martin Caballero’s Geografia Espejo [translation: Geography Mirror] represents this, or the contemporary version of this, most clearly. The work is stripped back to the bare essentials, establishing a dialogue with the viewer which is communicated easily through its beauty.

Lightness is actually quite difficult to assign to the end product of visual art, but in doing what in science is referred to as empirical adequacy – presenting just what must be shown, to prove enough to share

an idea – the artist clearly understands the symmetries between the written and visual word.

•

Quickness

The concept of “Quickness” is concerned with the way an artist might control the pace of a narrative. In the case of a piece of visual art, it’s helpful to think about how quickly the ‘meaning’ of the piece reveals itself.

•

Quickness

Now Quickness is unusual, especially when discussing positive developments, because for the most part, artists want their audience to build a relationship with their work, not understand it entirely in seconds.

When referring to “Visibility”, Calvino is talking about the ability to not only build a visual image but a mental image. Mental images have the potential to stick around longer than a visual one, and can also create a far bigger picture than the one you see on a gallery wall.

Near enough everything on display, as is the nature of European art, is more than a visual image.

•

Where this may actually prove useful, and may have been Calvino’s drive to include it in his memos for this millennium, is the joke.

For art, the joke is invaluable. It is a route in for audiences who are unfamiliar with fine art. It creates a bridge of understanding, which tears down intimidating walls and shows viewers that art can in fact be funny

Authors and artists have more in common now than in the 1980s, particularly in this case. From the perspective of the artist, the boundary between visual and mental images has been blurred ever since expressionism. For writers, expressionism is an ambition more than a requirement.

Multiplicity

The concept of “Multiplicity” is all about ambition. The more ambitious an idea is, the more can come from it. Not only can multiple strands of philosophy, science history, and culture go into one piece of art. But multiple concepts and ideas can spring from the work.

•

Multiplicity

If ambition is key to this essay, then Laura Robertson – one of Liverpool’s two artists in the show – explores this most keenly.

It’s a very British kind of ambition to represent as much as possible, with the utmost clarity. Often, misplaced, the ambition of 21st Century art is to tell every story possible, leading to constant wrong turns.

In this case, far from misplaced, Laura Robertson sets the pace for the exhibition, through delivering historical and artistic context. And contextualising an exhibition like this is an inescapable necessity.

Ø, 2017, Ludomir Franczak, photo credit: Adam Lee

The sixth essay would have been on the topic of “Consistency”.

30 years after the publication of Six Memos and 19 years into the millennium Calvino refers to, this exhibition gives us a chance to reflect on the current state of European contemporary art as it relates to these values. It encourages us to look forward, while we look back on our common heritage, imagination, and humanity.

•

The sixth essay, Consistency

It would take far more will power than I have to avoid the obvious here. There is a clear sense of loss in this exhibition, which is part of one of the last creative European projects that Liverpool still engages in.

There is a fond anticipation of losing shared heritage and imagination which has defined British culture and European culture as one and the same.

Medusa’s Prayer, 2019, Laura Robertson and Mark Simmonds. photo credit: Adam Lee

But somehow, as we move closer to March 29th, Six Memos seems like a very very essential exhibition.

above all else.

Tjasa Kalkan’s Dialogues (no.1 and 2) are the clearest representation of this, not entirely clear, but clearly considering how the audience will respond or relate to the subjects. The gentle surreal humour drawn out of the everyday scenes is immediately enjoyable, and the absurdity of the human relationships to space is soon relatable.

•

Exactitude

“Exactitude” is probably best described as precision. It’s the ability of an artist (in Calvino’s case he has a writer in mind, here we are thinking of a visual artist) to plan and execute an idea in the clearest possible way.

•

Exactitude

Ludomir Franczak does just this, placing simplicity and clarity at the heart of his work.

All ideas, regardless of their scale, have one thing in common; they are all more valuable if they can be explained. And quite contrary to the prospect of Lightness, Exactitude is achieved by ensuring everything is presented that could possibly support the explanation.

The confident multimedia display is almost forensic in its presentation, using text and image with equal impact.

•

Visibility

•

Visibility

-Six Memos is open at St George’s Hall until 24th February 2019 Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith Writing credits for ‘The Quick Guide’ to Olivia Walker, Exhibition Manager

Translating the Street is back in Birkenhead, with Alternator Studio Alternator Studio have announced a new season of Translating The Street international micro-residencies in Birkenhead featuring photographer Casey Orr, sculptor Chris Dobrowolski and artist Kwong Lee. Alternator sits on the junction with Oxton Road and from this base, artist and studio founder Brigitte Jurack has discovered a range of independent businesses, bookended by the new Hive Youth Zone and the grand Birkenhead Central Library, that all serve a culturally diverse community.

But how to unlock this treasure-trove of stories, cultures and customs?

“But how to unlock this treasure-trove of stories, cultures and customs?”

The first round of Translating The Street micro-residencies in 2016 invited Jeff Young, Harold Offeh and Haleh Jamali to Alternator to spend time with Frank Cavanagh Shoe Repairs, All Nations 4 Hair and K&K Fruit & Vegetables.

Some artworks produced went on to reconnect Birkenhead to the world with Jeff’s soundwork A522 Hex presented at PROTOHOME (Newcastle) and Haleh’s video Frontier touring to Argentina, Nepal, Ethiopia, Brazil and Cuba.

Kwong with Birkenhead Central Library, from January 2019 onwards, to develop new artworks that translate specific stories from the Oxton Road corridor.

Three years later, Alternator has invited Casey to spend time with The Hive Youth Zone, Chris with Kitstop Model Shop and Polski Sklep European Delicatessen and

12noon-1pm Birkenhead Central Library 1-2pm Kitstop Model Shop and Polski Sklep European Delicatessen 2-4pm The Hive Youth Zone 4-5pm Birkenhead Central Library 5-6pm Alternator Studio

There will be a public launch event across all host venues on Saturday 13 th April:

See http://brigittejurack.de/translate.html and find Alternator Studio on Facebook.

dot-art & Liverpool BID are looking for artists for the Liverpool Plinth:

An iconic new sculpture is to be erected on the world famous Liverpool skyline, Liverpool BID Company has announced today.

For the second year running, the BID is collaborating with Liverpool Parish Church, also known as St Nick’s, and city gallery and art organisation, dot-art, to bring an exciting new piece of art to The Liverpool Plinth, located at the side of the church overlooking Chapel Street.

The new piece will replace last year’s winning sculpture, Gold Lamé, by Tony Heaton – a suspended, bright gold car – that has brought smiles to faces for the last 12 months, not to mention making international headlines when it was first unveiled. Gold Lamé was originally commissioned as part of Art of the Lived

Experiment for DaDaFest 2014 at the Bluecoat.

Artists from across the north of England are being urged to submit existing work that could call The Liverpool Plinth their home for the next year,.

Sculptors living or working in the north of England (North West, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber) are asked to submit existing work for consideration before the closing date on Thursday, March 28.

All delivery and installation costs for the winning artist will also be covered.

To find out more information, please visit dot-art.co.uk/the-liverpool-plinth-2019, email gallery@dot-art.com or call 0345 017 6660.

Preview: Gray G at Kirkby Gallery, and the 18th Knowsley Open

Historically, open exhibitions were revered, highly judged, highly commended, monetised affairs that showed, rather than showed off, the hierarchies and industry relationships of fine art. Today, most are quite straightforward opportunities for emerging artists to show their work.

artists in themselves, their influence on the artist showing alongside the Open is largely in immediacy. Immediacy in creating the work, but also in translating it into clear, concise, messages, which are more a result of the artists’ Graphic Design training.

Neither is a bad thing, and both have their let downs, so there is a very true value in finding the middle ground; a space where artists are offered the chance to exhibit work alongside peers at all levels of their career, receive honest and formative critique and develop relationships with curators, without necessarily having exhibited before.

The work is digitally manipulated and recoloured, printed, retouched, collaged and edited with analogue paint and chance methods highlights the hand of the artist in his work, as well as simply representing the icons he depicts.

They are also, appropriately for the gallery, icons of literature as well as music, art and society leading on from the success of the Frankenstein 2018 book art exhibition which ran through the Independents Biennial, and into 2019.

Open is open I guess, and it’s the Knowsley Open currently that seems to be going further than most to deliver their open exhibition in the context of the borough, rather than offering space without reason.

For artists and makers local to Knowsley, myself included, the open seems to be a genuinely supportive system. The best example of this is Gray, who has volunteered at Kirkby Gallery (hosting the exhibition) and through entry into the Open was given the opportunity to show an exhibition of his own making.

The exhibition displays the gallery’s willingness to work with local artists (bear in mind they hosted work by Henry Moore last year) but also, for the public who will see the exhibition, they get the context of the local creative industry, in seeing an entire body of work by one local artist alongside entries into a group show linked by merit rather than subject.

The juxtaposition of group show and solo show delivers a narrative rarely seen at Opens.

Gray ’s work focusses on iconography in pop culture, heavily influenced by Warhol and Hockney, whose oversaturated work transformed the way contemporary art works. Iconic

The gallery marks the entrance to Kirkby Library, and is usually occupied by nationally and internationally acclaimed artists, so when the Open comes to town, is worth seeing to remind yourself of the artists living and working in this brilliant borough, and the connections and ties between them all.

-The 18th Knowsley Open Art Exhibition & Gray corridor exhibition is open 7th Feb – 4th May 2019 The affordable Art Auction is 9th May, 5pm Kirkby Gallery, Norwich Way, Kirkby, L32 8XY Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith

NEWS

Find the latest news & more on these articles at www.artinliverpool.com

Special exhibition marks 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, will host an exhibition of artwork by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) to mark the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing (1 February to 6 May 2019) will explore the diversity of subjects that inspired Leonardo’s creativity across 12 drawings.

The free exhibition will be held as part of a nationwide event organised by Royal Collection Trust, in which 144 of the Renaissance master’s greatest drawings in the Royal Collection will go on display in 12 simultaneous exhibitions across the nation, giving the widest-ever UK audience the opportunity to see the work of this extraordinary artist.

Leonardo was unique in his range of achievements, and drawing lay at the heart of his work. He drew to prepare his artistic projects, to record the world around him, to pursue his scientific speculations, and to make his imagination visible.

Xanthe Brooke, Curator of European Art, National Museums Liverpool, said: “Leonardo da Vinci is undoubtedly one of the most renowned and influential artists in history, having left a major impact within the disciples of both art and science. We’re honoured to be part of this wonderful showcase of drawings, creating a very special moment in the Walker’s history.”

“Through the exhibition and the lively events programme accompanying it, we look forward to revealing more about the man behind the art and exploring the breadth of subjects that inspired him.”

The drawings at the Walker include The head of Leda, depicting Leda from Leda and the Swan, a popular story from Greek mythology. Here, Leonardo has devoted his attention to illustrating her elaborate, intricately braided hairstyle. Also on display will be the artist’s metalpoint study of a horse, which was used to help him to build a clay model for a large bronze monument commissioned by the ruler of Milan.

The exhibition showcases Leonardo’s botanical and anatomical studies, which were often scientific studies in their own right, while other drawings focus on subjects including classical architecture, the solar system and the movement of water.

The 12 drawings will also include a charcoal study for the drapery of Leonardo’s Madonna and Child with St Anne, demonstrating his remarkable technical abilities, as well as a river landscape, a stormy apocalyptic scene and a chalk drawing of a masquerader on horseback in an ornate costume. This drawing was probably produced during the artist’s time as a court artist in France at the end of his career.

City to develop masterplan for Baltic Triangle

Africa Oyé reveals festival weekend for 2019

Liverpool City Council has appointed an award-winning team of urban designers and planners to create a new masterplan for one of the UK’s creative hot-spots.

The Baltic Triangle area, which covers 37.6 hectares of mixed-use land, is home to many digital and creative industries as well as popular night-time economy venues, many of which are located in the historical built fabric.

As a result of the area’s proximity to the city centre and its new popularity – fuelled by a blossoming creative and digital sector overseen by the Baltic Creative and Baltic Triangle C.I.Cs – it has attracted significant levels of development. Since January 2012, £128 million has been invested in new developments with a further £62 million currently on site.

However, the area has also seen significant growth in residential development over

The 27th annual Africa Oyé festival will take place in Liverpool on the 22nd and 23rd of June, 2019.

the past decade – with a doubling in its population – and there has been an everincreasing development pressure on the remaining available land.

The draft SRF, which will include an expanded area incorporating Cains Brewery and surrounding neighbourhood south of

upper Parliament Street, will go out to public consultation in the summer and once adopted by the council would be used as a Supplementary Planning Document to inform any planning applications in the area.

Sefton Park will once again be taken over by the music and culture of Africa and the diaspora, for two free days of fantastic live music, DJs and dance, as well as workshops, food stalls and a range of traders in the Oyé Village.

For more information on the festival and other events held across the country by Africa Oyé please visit africaoye.com.

NEWS

Tate Liverpool brings critically acclaimed work, Love Is the Message, to region for the first time Photo credit: Arthur Jafa, Love is the Message, The Message is Death 2016. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York/Rome

Tate Liverpool will be the first gallery in the north of England to present the critically acclaimed artwork Love is the Message, The Message is Death 2016. Made by American artist and film-maker Arthur Jafa (b. 1960), the seven-minute video shows a montage of historic and contemporary film footage to trace African American history and experience.

car, Beyoncé in music video 7/11, a police officer throwing a teenage girl to the ground at a pool party in Texas. These images are interspersed by footage shot by Jafa himself, including his daughter’s wedding, his mother dancing, and footage from previous works, mixing his personal experience with a collective one.

Presented in almost total darkness, visitors will be immersed in the video installation, accompanied by Kanye West’s gospel-inspired hip-hop track Ultralight Beam, whose lyrics envelop Jafa’s rapid editing style.

In addition, the video work features a recurring image of the sun. Jafa commented, ‘…the sun is the appropriate scale at which to consider what’s going on. It’s fundamentally an assertion that black people’s lives should be seen on a cosmological level…I want you to look up at these things that are happening to black people, not down – the way you would stare at the sun.’

Love is the Message, The Message is Death brings together clips from multiple sources, including pop videos, TV news, and police cameras. Moments include: a civil rights march, former US President Obama singing Amazing Grace at the eulogy for the 9 Charleston parishioners killed by a white supremacist, Martin Luther King waving from the back of a

Lee, Solange Knowles and Jay-Z. Jafa explains: ‘I have a very simple mantra and it’s this: I want to make black cinema with the power, beauty, and alienation of black music. That’s my big goal. The larger preoccupation is how do we force cinema to respond to the existential, political, and spiritual dimensions of who we are as a people. Music to me is a convenient marker of that. Music is the one space in which we [as black people] know we have totally actualized ourselves; we don’t ever have to write another song to contribute as magnificently as we already have. So a cinema like the music—that’s what Love Is the Message is trying to do.’

The display is curated by Elisa Nocente, Exhibitions Assistant, Tate Liverpool.

Mississippi-born Arthur Jafa is a film director, cinematographer, and visual artist who has worked with musicians and directors, including Stanley Kubrick, Spike

Milapfest’s Founder & Executive Director, Prashant Nayak, Has Retired After Over 35 Years Service 2019 marks a significant new era for Milapfest, the UK’s leading Indian arts development trust. Executive Director and founder Prashant Nayak retired at the start of this year after over 35 years of tireless and invaluable work at the organisation.

The organisation was created in 1985 by a group of likeminded friends spearheaded by Dr Nayak to provide meaningful cultural activities which enhance friendship,

understanding and cooperation between the Host community and the people of South Asian origin who had made their home in Britain. It also felt that sharing each other’s customs, traditions and arts was the best way for a community to remain harmonious and happy.

On Friday 18th January 2019, the organisation Dr Nayak founded all those years ago was able to celebrate his important work as it welcomed Arts Council England‘s Chief Executive, Darren Henley OBE, to present Prashant with a small token of the organisation’s appreciation of his service.

Find the latest news & more on these articles at www.artinliverpool.com

Liverpool Everyman Theatre to host the national Fantastic for Families Awards 2019

Jean Luc Courcoult, Bluecoat working with Belong care village The Giants’ creator, to explore art’s impact on dementia receives Freedom of the City

The UK’s most family-friendly arts and cultural organisations will be recognised at the national Fantastic for Families Awards ceremony at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre on 11 th February 2019.

Jean Luc, credit Heather J Murphy

24 arts and cultural organisations have been shortlisted for the Awards, for their outstanding contribution to arts and culture for families during the last year.

Voted for by a panel of expert judges from the creative sector, awards recognise the outstanding events that took place during 2018 and the exemplary family-friendly organisations and venues that welcomed families.

Awards have been given by The Family Arts Campaign, the national initiative funded by Arts Council England to connect families with cultural opportunities.. Results will be revealed at the Everyman ceremony where the UK’s best organisations, artists and makers will gather to celebrate the achievements of the last year.

Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England said: These organisations are leading the way in increasing the amount of cultural provision for families, improving their quality of experience, and helping them to be better informed about what art and culture is out there for them.

Whatever the shape of your family, the arts can provide it with happiness, with pleasure, with things to do together, to create together and to remember together.

Anna Dever, Manager said:

Family

Arts

Campaign

All of the organisations submitting for the awards are doing wonderful work to engage families and across generations, often with limited resources. It has been tough for our judging panel as all organisations clearly had innovative projects that are providing a fantastic service, but all of the shortlisted organisations have demonstrated a fantastic welcome and personal approach to visitors of all ages.

The creative director who wowed more than three million people with Sea Odyssey, Memories of August 1914 and, the final act of the trilogy, Liverpool’s Dream, has received Freedom of the City at St George’s Hall for ‘outstanding contribution to the city’.

At the same time, the Nantes-based company he founded, Royal de Luxe, was admitted to the Freedom Roll of Associations and Institutions.

The honour comes following last October’s Liverpool’s Dream event which has been hailed as the region’s biggest, and most successful-ever free event, attracting 1.3million people and generating £60.6m for the local economies.

Jean Luc said: “I am touched and overwhelmed by this recognition. Liverpool holds a very special place in my heart.

Audiences embraced our Giant family, and there was no other city where we wanted to do the final-ever show.”

Pioneering care village operator, Belong, has partnered with Liverpool’s centre for the contemporary arts, Bluecoat, in a unique three-year research project to explore how the arts can improve the lives of those with dementia.

The collaboration, called ‘Where the Arts Belong’, will see Belong Birkdale, currently under construction on Oxford Road in Southport, become the first Belong village to benefit from permanent staff trained in specialist arts provision, when it opens later this year.

taking up pilot residencies in the village to explore how the arts can be effectively embedded into new care environments ahead of moving to Birkdale in the autumn.

Over the next four months, Belong customers and staff will take part in an array of creative workshops, ranging from storytelling and sculpture to song and dance. The work produced across the project will feature at the Atkinson in Southport and the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, running for six to eight weeks at each venue.

Six critically acclaimed artists are involved in the project, which launched at Belong Crewe earlier this month. They will be

Culture delivers massive boost for city, as council release 2018 report LIVERPOOL’S programme of events to mark ten years since the city was European Capital of Culture, attracted more than 2.2 million visitors to the city and boosted the local economy by a whopping £85m – QUADRUPLING the 2017 figure.

A special End of Year Report into Liverpool’s 2018 cultural activities will be presented to the Culture and Tourism Select Committee tomorrow (Tuesday 22 January). It analyses the work of the city council’s Culture Liverpool department which is responsible for staging events, along with the operation of St George’s Hall, the Town Hall, Liverpool Cruise Terminal and Liverpool Film Office.

In total the whole portfolio generated £108million for the city.

Giants Day 3 Images by Gareth Jones

Review: Quentin Blake & John Yeoman: 50 Years of Children’s Books at Lady Lever Art Gallery

Mouse Trouble, Quentin Blake and below, The Fabulous Foskett Family Circus Quentin Blake

The Lady Lever is currently host to a must see collection of collaborative work spanning 50 years by two of Britain’s most beloved literary figures.

Everyone must surely be familiar with either the well-loved titles by John Yeoman, or the iconic illustrations of Quentin Blake, but this exhibition tells a story of their long collaborative career together and just how well it worked. Whether you know the tales from your childhood, or you have read them to your children, this exhibition is definitely one for the whole family, and anyone else tagging along.

experience as the text, which is evident in his other career-long collaborations with icons like Roald Dahl, David Walliams and Joan Aiken. But the intricate stories and magical worlds created by Blake and Yeoman are a testament to the friendship behind the success; they stand the test of time, as many of these books are now being re-published with Anderson Press for a new generation of book lovers.

an enormous stack of pots, topped with a startled looking bunny rabbit. This is a recipe for a sparked imagination, and just a handful of the masterpieces of quirky storytelling on show.

We are increasingly aware of how long children can be absorbed by screens. I defy anyone not to be absorbed by this wacky array of characters and plot lines.

School friends that shared an artistic career that has lasted more than half a century, Yeoman and Blake’s exhibition features more than 40 works of illustration and books. A brilliant celebration of literature and art, perfectly combined.

From the conception of their partnership, when Quentin Blake asked John Yeoman to write a book for him to illustrate, A Drink of Water, to their most recent project together, All The Year Round, this exhibition shows original artwork and features everything from short novels to classic folktales. What better place to see it than the ever beautiful Lady Lever in Port Sunlight.

The instantly recognisable work of Quentin Blake will always capture the imaginations of both young and old. His illustrations are integral to the books he works with. They complement the narrative unlike any other artist, becoming as important to the readers’

John Yeoman’s stories may be aimed at the young, by gently teaching them about the world and introducing ideas that may stump other authors, for fear of overwhelming the audience, but the author and adult reader have a direct line of understanding; this grounds you, and puts you in the headspace of a child, which is a lovely place to be. The illustrations help the reader embroider the story with their own detail and movement, but also give the younger reader space for thought and contemplation.

-This is a touring exhibition running until 3rd March 2019 at Lady Lever Art Gallery A mixed flock of birds - turkeys, herons, crows - all holding onto the strings of colourful balloons flying high through the air. A smartly dressed man, balancing 19 bananas on his nose and holding a bunch more in each hand. A little boy with a snake for a scarf, alongside a lady carrying

With walls filled in with illustrations and excerpts, between the framed work, there is no time to lose your attention. The images almost come to life, they have that trademark quality that invites you to look closer and see what else you might discover crawling from frame to frame.

Words, Kathryn Wainwright

Alex Katz at Tate Liverpool

Artist Rooms was part of Nicholas Serota’s outgoing legacy at Tate. When the long serving Director of the national gallery group stepped down in 2018 he had described the foundation of the programmes as “without precedent anywhere in the world.”

The touring collection features work from Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons, Louise Borgeois – just three of 38 internationally famous artists on the list. Its establishment was intended as a touring exhibition series that galleries all over the UK could host, and for the most part has seen recognised artists on repetitive journeys around the UK. The latest show at Tate Liverpool from the collection is of Alex Katz, an artist whose name is less known than his work, which by most outside the world of art dealerships is still not particularly familiar.

Rather than hinder the exhibition it actually helps, and probably does more for the vision of the scheme’s creators than Koons or Lichtenstein possibly could.

Witnessing work that wouldn’t otherwise have been known in Liverpool is really important, not just showing work by

big name artists because it’s available in the collection, but using the Tate platform to educate and introduce new work and new ideas to audiences that don’t, or can’t get to London to witness an incredibly selective art world.

I was struck by a very clear sense of place with Katz’s larger works, but it is his smaller pieces that get the most regular praise. The artist is probably best explained through his connection to pop art. He wasn’t part of the movement, but very likely influenced it.

His history as an artist is so steeped in the art world itself that the social structures of pop art couldn’t possibly have avoided his influence. Most of his work, particularly the smaller works, while most obviously representing this transition from figurative work to the bold and representative colours of pop art, is also probably his least inspiring. It’s his larger work that makes this part of the Artist Rooms collection worth seeing.

personal and delicate representation of fear and pressure.

Sitting with the work for a while is probably necessary (whether this is your first encounter with Alex Katz or not, but definitely if you’ve not see his work before) to understand the power of the work. During my time in the gallery I observed something quite special; nobody ever seemed satisfied with one single perspective. In front of every painting, people shifted, in all directions, always with their eyes fixed to the paintings.

I couldn’t work out if the rest of the visitors liked the work, or loathed it, but none of them dismissed it, and that is precisely what Artist Rooms should be doing, because nobody needs to discover Warhol, and everybody knows what to expect from Jeff Koons, but there are artists in this touring collection that we have never heard of, and who I’d like to know more about.

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You can get entirely lost in the overwhelming darkness of the two most confidently placed paintings, as the shadows build with time spent. The colour here, or lack of has all of the confidence and selflessness of pop art, but with a very

Artist Rooms: Alex Katz is at Tate Liverpool until 17 March Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith

The Art Schools of North West England, at Bluecoat I don’t remember the days when there was an art school in every town, I can barely even imagine what that would be like, living in a world where art was delivered as an opportunity for social mobility.

Today, Arts Council England have a specific fund set aside for communities that used to be supported by these institutions, its called Creative People and Places. Today, unless you live in a city or are lucky enough to have a college with foundation provision, you’re unlikely to have access to the arts without travelling to a city centre more defined by retail and leisure than by culture.

And to have the national funding body for the arts acknowledge the lack of provision so blatantly is no laughing matter. The lack of provision now not only means that creative minds are being starved of appropriate education, but that those living in cities miss the perspective of those outside.

So much of the history of art is based in rural and untouched space, or diverse communities that could enlighten the city elite. The Arts & Crafts movement at the

turn of the 20th Century put such stock in landscape that it was probably harder to be a respected artist if you didn’t have a direct relationship with nature. Writers like John Ruskin ensured a true understanding of nature and subject was met by any artist he gave his respect to – largely why the Pre-Raphaelites were so hounded by him as they set out a path that eventually led to the centralisation fine art.

Today, we learn to understand the world from classrooms, and city centres far away from how art was ever intended to be taught.

And it’s not even that big of a jump to look back to a time when art school was available in towns all over the North West.

demolished, some repurposed, some standing empty – are stories of what happened to them. One of the sadder stories is Rochdale, which is remembered by its original terracotta frieze, which now stands in the middle of a car park, on the demolished site of the school.

What has come from this though, in the bigger picture is a new outward searching set of programmes, with galleries like Bluecoat working with groups outside the city to create new opportunities, or Biennial’s touring programme which was announced to be returning in 2019, that takes internationally leading programme sof art to places like Rochdale. The impact is that these towns become a part of the conversation, and the residents join in.

Sadly, other than looking back longingly for a time many artists won’t even remember, the exhibition is just an archive. It can’t revive these art schools, and is unlikely to rev up any campaigns or policy that would change that. What it does do is nudge other groups, artists and organisations to think about the importance of exploring their surroundings and their history, and accepting their privilege in having access to the arts at all.

-The Art Schools of North West England runs until 31st March at Bluecoat Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith

The Art Schools of North West England at Bluecoat is a matter of fact exhibition that highlights thirty art schools which made up a large portion of the 150 art schools in the country in the 1960s. Today there are around 40 in the UK as a whole.

Alongside incredible photographs of the schools in the present day – some

images courtesy of Bluecoat

Review: Welsh Landscapes at dot-art The Welsh countryside is an unbelievable resource we have right on our doorstep in the North West. I spent a lot of my childhood in Wales. My own idea of a Welsh landscape is the view from my nan’s top window up the side of a mountain in Corwen, an unforgettable and nostalgic image that is undoubtedly part of the fabric of my being.

Though it never took long to drive there it felt a million miles away from Liverpool and the city we were leaving.

The Welsh Landscapes exhibition in dot-art brings the proximity of Liverpool and Wales into focus. Drawing on how instrumental the historical interlinking was to expanding parts of Liverpool, and establishing the city’s soul. Three landscape painters explore their own autobiographical depictions of their Welsh backgrounds and heritage and display some beautifully engaging pieces.

The thick impasto layers in Huw LewisJones work give depth and magnitude to the Welsh mountains. This technique brings a real physicality to a landscape piece especially when the subject is that of scale. The rustic, layering, texture lends

itself to the rural beauty of the landscape, the artist’s inspiration is rooted in his home in south Snowdonia.

Using local organic and mineral pigments Susan Williams’ work, also rooted in the Snowdonia region, reflects the quarrying and altering landscape. The works have a rawness that you can feel through the relevance of the material.

images: Paintings, oil on linen,

by Huw Lewis Jones at dot-art

Dorothy Benjamin’s work often depicts intense skies that evoke unease. The artist explores coastal landscapes with an oil palette of earthy browns and oranges.

These beautiful yet foreboding pieces are engaging and capture imagination with quiet intensity.

-Welsh Landscapes continues at dot-art until 2nd March Words, Kathryn Wainwright

Bluecoat Display Centre at 60

Bluecoat Display Centre when it first opened

Bluecoat Display Centre in 2019

In sixty years, the Bluecoat Display Centre has probably done more for local makers than any other gallery. It has enabled the sale and exhibition of artists who respect their craft to the point it can entirely define their work.

Sadly, this time last year we also lost Julia Carter-Preston, one of the most respected ceramicists of the 20th century, whose work revived sgraffito, and one of the most recognisable artists to sell through Bluecoat Display Centre.

It has also created local icons out of artists, whose work is now part of the fabric Liverpool.

In company like this, and under their legacy, emerging artists, jewellers, print-makers, ceramicists, carpenters and metalsmiths are all exhibiting as part of a sixtieth anniversary exhibition, marking the start of a long future for the gallery, and many fruitful relationships with artists who may well be the Carter-Prestons of the future.

Emma Rodgers, showing alongside their 60th birthday exhibition with a solo display in the window is a perfect example of that.

Her work, which has received international acclaim, and placed her firmly in the ranks of the best ceramic artists in the world is a permenant resident in the Display Centre.

I was a little late to the party for 60 @ thebdc, so by the time I went to see it, only a week after it launched, almost all the work

on show was sold. It’s not hard to see why though, with 60 artists selling work at £60, including the biggest names in the BDC’s collection, it’s an unmissable collection of craft and design.

One of the loveliest additions to the show though was a photograph I hadn’t seen before, of the display centre when it had only just opened, with the window looking out onto a very different version of College Lane.

Bluecoat Display Centre has changed so much over sixty years that it’s barely recognisable, but the thing that drives the gallery is exactly as it was back then. They support craft and share it with ardent and passionate collectors.

Where they should take the most pride is in their ability to remain in place, not hanging on, but thriving, in a part of town that serves as one of the main entrances to the UK’s sixth largest shopping centre. That’s not gentrification, that’s full scale city centre transformation and commercialisation, yet Bluecoat Chambers, Bluecoat and Bluecoat Display Centre stay put, defining the area rather than a side note from history.

-60 @thebdc is open until 2nd March 2019 Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith

WHAT’S ON > CURRENT Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing Walker Art Gallery

She’s Eclectic: Women Artists of the VG&M collection

Current Exhibitions Different Ways of Seeing 92 Degrees Coffee, until 15 Feb Collage art by Khatuna, Waltraud, Becky, Linda, Brian and Charlotte -Joshua Henderson and Veronica Watson: Studio Me Bluecoat, until 10 Mar Members of Blue Room embark on their first studio residency -The Art Schools of North West England Bluecoat, until 10 Mar An exhibition of photographs and texts documenting 30 historic sites of art education -Jade Montserrat: Instituting Care Bluecoat, until 10 Mar Bluecoat’s 2018 artist in residence presents responses to key texts on decolonisation and decolonising knowledge by writers such as Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde and Stuart Hall

60 @thebdc Bluecoat Display Centre, until 2 Mar A special exhibition to start the year with a bang which will celebrate the history and the mutually supportive relationships the Bluecoat Display Centre have developed over 60 years with the makers we promote and sell on behalf of -Welsh Landscapes dot-art, until 2 Mar The work of three painters whose landscape art works are autobiographical representations of their Welsh heritage -Quentin Blake and John Yeoman: 50 Years of Children’s Books Lady Lever Art Gallery, until 3 Mar The first exhibition to celebrate illustrator Blake’s decades-long partnership with the author -Double Fantasy: John & Yoko Museum of Liverpool, until 3 Nov John & Yoko’s story, in their own words

--Blue Room at Ten Bluecoat, until 10 Mar Celebrating ten years of Blue Room, Bluecoat’s inclusive arts project

The Provincial Grand Orange Lodge of Liverpool Museum of Liverpool, until 28 Sep From a marching drum and a King William tea set, to traditional orange sashes

ROOT-ed OUTPUT Gallery, until 3 Feb Three Black women artists working across form and genre: Ivy Kalungi in sculpture and installation, Abeni Sheen in painting and Kiara Mohamed in video.

--Wake Up Together Open Eye Gallery, until 17 Feb A photography exhibition championing the rights of every person to love who they want --

ROOT-ed OUTPUT Gallery, until 3 Feb

RIBA Stirling Prize Exhibition 2018 RIBA North, until 23 Feb Exhibition of the six schemes shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2018 --

EXHIBITIONS

Find FULL listings and events information at www.artinliverpool.com

Serena Korda: The Bell Tree Speke Hall Ugo Rondinone: Liverpool Mountain Tate Liverpool, until 23 Oct Swiss-artist Ugo Rondinone’s first public artwork in the UK -Fernand Léger Tate Liverpool, until 17 Mar Regarded as a forerunner of pop art, Fernand Léger (1881–1955) was key figure of international modernity --

Artist Rooms: Robert Mapplethorpe The Atkinson, until 23 Mar American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s vast, provocative and powerful body of work has established him as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century -Jasmir Creed – Dystopolis Victoria Gallery & Museum, until 21 Apr A new exhibition expressing alienation and disorientation in the modern city --

Artist Rooms: Alex Katz Tate Liverpool, until 17 Mar Elegant paintings present a modern, quintessentially American take on classical themes --

Serena Korda: The Bell Tree Speke Hall, until 28th July The Bell Tree draws on the hall’s hidden history. Korda reconsiders aspects of communion and tradition -Six Memos St George’s Hall, until 24 Feb European Contemporary artists celebrating the works of late Italian novelist, Italo Calvino. The exhibition explores his essays; Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity and Consistency.

Welsh Landscapes dot-art

Op Art in Focus Tate Liverpool, until 2 June Op art – short for optical art – emerged in the 1960s, including work by Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely -Ideas Depot Tate Liverpool, until 21 July A dynamic display of artworks chosen for primary school children to be enjoyed by everyone --

Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho: News from Nowhere Tate Liverpool, until 17 Mar See Liverpool through the eyes of a man who has travelled through space and time -The Art of Noise The Atkinson, until 16 Mar Enjoy a multi-sensory experience in the gallery -Frank Hampson – The Man who drew Dan Dare The Atkinson, until 16 Mar The comic became phenomenally popular, with a million boys waiting expectantly each week for the next episode -Southport: Double Take (Old Southport Through a Modern Lens) The Atkinson, until late 2019 Local photographer Matt Dodd has blended historical photographs of Southport with images from the present -Wirral Society of Arts Exhibition The Atkinson, until 30th Mar Following its’ successful 70th Anniversary Exhibition the Wirral Society of Arts starts 2019 on the Atkinson Landing --

She’s Eclectic: Women Artists of the VG&M collection Victoria Gallery & Museum, until A vibrant new exhibition showcasing the diversity of artwork by women artists in their collection -Leo Fitzmaurice: Between You and Me and Everything Else Walker Art Gallery, until 17 Mar An assembly of portraits, which asks visitors to look twice at what might, at first, seem familiar -Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing Walker Art Gallery, until 6 May To mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, 144 of the Renaissance master’s greatest drawings in the Royal Collection will go on display in 12 simultaneous exhibitions across the UK. -Animal Encounters Williamson Art Gallery, until 1 Sep Animals across six centuries of art

WHAT’S ON > COMING

How We Look: Wirral Met Fellowship Exhibition 2019 Williamson Art Gallery

18th Knowsley Open Art Exhibition Kirkby Gallery

Elaine Preece Stanley, Painting Nature Editions Ltd

Mark Leckey OUTPUT gallery

Exhibitions “A Breath of Fresh Air” by Alison Grant Staaks, 1 Feb – 28 Feb Coupling her new found expression with the disciplines embedded as an Architect brings a refreshing new perspective to the often painted Dee Estuary.

-How We Look: Wirral Met Fellowship Exhibition 2019 Williamson Art Gallery, 2 Feb – 13 Mar This year the exhibition features a collaborative project undertaken by the 2018 fellows Louis Jeck Prestidge and Jonathan Benson with WMC lecturer Michelle Rowley.

Mark Leckey OUTPUT gallery, 7 Feb – 24 Feb Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey’s solo exhibition at OUTPUT will see him presenting his 2001 film ‘We Are Untitled.’

Made after ‘Fiorruci Made Me Hardcore,’ Leckey had wanted to film his own imagery instead of using more found footage. ‘We Are Untitled’ documents a party in the artist’s flat on Windmill St, resulting in part-music video, part-time capsule, as he created something he could bury and look back on in twenty years to access his own nostalgia.

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Elaine Preece Stanley, Painting Nature Editions Ltd., 8 Feb – 30 Mar Elaine Preece Stanley was ironically was selected for the ING Discerning Eye competition in 2016 during the same period that she was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa. In these paintings, Elaine aims to express those sensations that inspired her to paint them: The light that holds and shapes the vegetation, water and sky.

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18th Knowsley Open Art Exhibition Kirkby Gallery, 11 Feb – 4 May artists of all ages who live, work, study or volunteer in Knowsley come together to exhibit their 2D artwork in a salon-hang style visual extravaganza -Project25: Tate Collective Producers Tate Exchange, Tate Liverpool, 18 Feb – 24 Feb Join current members of Tate Collective Producers, as they celebrate 25 years of young people’s programming at Tate Liverpool .

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SOON

Find FULL listings and events information at www.artinliverpool.com

Alien Sound: Ambient Music and the Limits the Human Tate Liverpool

Kevin Crooks – You’re Only Here for the Culture, book launch Open Eye Gallery

The Liquid Club #1: Exchanging Perspectives

by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro Bluecoat

Beyond These Rooms Symposium: The Intersection Between Art and History Tate Liverpool

Art Club, February Meeting (ROOT-ed Zine exhibition) OUTPUT gallery, 3 Feb, 2pm Look at & discuss the ROOT-ed exhibition at the Output Gallery on 32 Seel Street -Kevin Crooks – You’re Only Here for the Culture, book launch Open Eye Gallery, 6 Feb, 6pm Photography and film about how communities in Hull and Liverpool are affected by being awarded ‘City of Culture’.

The launch will begin with an artist talk, which will then be followed by a discussion panel --

Talks, Tours & Performance

The Liquid Club #1: Exchanging Perspectives by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro Bluecoat, 6 Feb, 6:30pm The Liquid Club is a new reading group which invites collective thinking and will drive the development of Liverpool Biennial 2020.

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Beyond These Rooms Symposium: The Intersection Between Art and History Tate Liverpool, 7 Feb, 10am-5pm A symposium exploring the intersections between art and history with ANU and CoisCéim --

Glossary Review with ROOT-ed Zine Bluecoat, 7 Feb, 6pm Join ROOT-ed zine founders and editors Amber Akaunu and Fauziya Johnson for a workshop on the language we use in art and politics.

-Alien Sound: Ambient Music and the Limits the Human Tate Liverpool, 9 Feb, 10:30am-4:30pm Artists and theorists will open up new possibilities for thinking and practising a different relationship to noise and music. Join in with talks, interviews and discussions.

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The national Family Arts Conference Everyman Theatre, 12 Feb, 11am-5pm This high profile event will focus on the value of arts, culture and creativity for families and will include key notes from Dr. Zoe Wyrko, Syima Aslam from Bradford Literature Festival and Cheryl Taylor, Head of Content for BBC Children’s -Fine Art and Design Student Auction 2019 Cornerstone Building, 13 Feb, 5-10pm Auction selling work by both fine art and design students at Liverpool Hope University, as well as pieces by industry professionals. ...

WHAT’S ON > COMING Artist Talk: Suzanne Treister FACT

Souvenirs from the Far East, an Illustrated Talk Williamson Art Gallery

Expanding the Picture II Bluecoat

Liverpool Artists’ Network meeting Make. North Docks,

Talks, Tours & Performance Expanding the Picture II Bluecoat, 13 Feb, 7pm Emerging dance artists Tony Carroll and Diana Disley will be developing new work at Bluecoat in collaboration with Mary Prestidge from Liverpool Improvisation Collective -Curator Tour: Broken Symmetries FACT, 13 Feb, 6:30pm Join co-curator José-Carlos Mariátegui, on an in-depth tour of Broken Symmetries.

Radical Mycology Gathering: Primordia Bluecoat, 16 Feb, 1-4pm A gathering for the fungally inclined presented by artist Jane Lawson -Talking Poetry Bluecoat, 19 Feb, 6-8-pm Talking Poetry gatherings provide a monthly opportunity to listen to and discuss poetry recordings --

Liverpool Artists’ Network meeting Make. North Docks, 18 Feb, 6:30pm The Liverpool Artists’ Network meetings are there for you to meet other artists, share ideas, get feedback, make connections and discuss collaboration opportunities.

-Cognitive Conversations FACT, 20 Feb, 6:30pm How does digital technology affect the way we think and behave, and what is its impact on our experience of art?

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Souvenirs from the Far East, an Illustrated Talk Williamson Art Gallery, 21 Feb, 7pm Souvenirs from the Far East will be explored in an illustrated talk from Dr Brigitte Jurack on the evening of 21st February 2019.

-Artist Talk: Suzanne Treister FACT, 27 Feb, 6:30pm Join Suzanne Treister, winner of the 2018 Collide Award, for a discussion about her new work The Holographic Universe Theory of Art History

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SOON

Find FULL listings and events information at www.artinliverpool.com

Classes & Workshops Almost all of these workshops need booking, please go to the website to find booking links & further event information for all of the below

Fernand Léger Study Day: led by Dr Judith Walsh Tate Liverpool, 2 Feb, 10:30am-4pm illustrated talks, group discussion and gallery workshops

Beginner Acrylic Painting by dot-art Bluecoat, 5 Feb, 6:45pm (course) Explore and investigate a broad range of traditional and contemporary painting processes and practices

Digital Photography by dot-art Bluecoat, 12 Feb, 6:45pm (course) Each week of the course will include both theory and practical exercises.

Proto-Live Half Term Camp FACT, 19 Feb, 10am (course) Build inventions, make artworks and create your own 360 live stream YouTube show, Proto-Live!. For young people aged 11-15

--Civil Rights and Freedom Fights International Slavery Museum, 2 Feb, 1112pm Find out more about civil rights movements, revolutionaries and freedom fighters

-dot-art, Life Drawing Bluecoat, 5 Feb, 6:45 (course) Roy Munday leads a 10 week programme of evening lessons developing your skills in life drawing --

-Do Something Saturdays FACT, every Saturday, 12-4pm Discover a different way of experiencing exhibitions at FACT. Suitable for children aged 6 and over

Etsy for Beginners Workshop Static Gallery, 6 Feb, 6-9pm Informal workshop session, ideal for people who have been selling on Etsy for a short time

-Digital Photography Level 2 by dot-art Metal Liverpool, 13 Feb, 6-8pm (course) The course will include both theory and practical exercises.

-Paint like Banksy The Shipping Forecast, 13 Feb, 7:30pm PopUp Painting invites you to unleash your creativity – wine glass in one hand, paintbrush in the other! No experience needed.

-Portrait Drawing by dot-art Make. North Docks, 7 Feb, 6:45pm (course) Learn the fundamentals of drawing characterful portraits in this 10 week course led by tutor Kathy Dereli.

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-Drawing Techniques, dot-art Metal Liverpool, 5 Feb, 6pm (course) This course is suitable for beginners or those wishing to explore aspects of their own practise.

Woollen Weave: Weaving Taster Class The Fashion Hub, 22 Feb, all day This class is designed for beginner weavers, to give you an insight into the woven craft.

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Pottery Workshop Mon Ceramics, Claremont Farm, 16 Feb, 10am These weekend sessions are fun and social, but aimed at giving you the technique and confidence to harness your creativity and make something you are proud of.

-Art Play for Under Fives Lady Lever Art Gallery, every Monday, 1011am Bring along the little ones for creative play activities, including puppets, costumes, toys, storytelling and nursery rhymes

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Telling Tales Bluecoat, 2 Feb, 2-3pm Strange and wonderful tales of all kinds for children aged 2-5 years and their grownups, told by Bluecoat Storytellers.

Quentin Blake: See, make, do Lady Lever Art Gallery, 19 Feb, 1-4pm Make your own piece of artwork inspired by our exhibition. Ideal for accompanied children 10 years and under.

Beginner’s Digital Photography by dot-art Bluecoat, 10 Feb, 11:30am-5pm Develop your photography skills in this introductory one day course --

-Feltmaking by dot-art Bluecoat, 17 Feb, 11:30am Learn how to do wet feltmaking and develop your skills with textiles.

Explore and draw Museum of Liverpool, 22 Feb, 1:30-3pm Everything you need to create a piece of art inspired by the museum collections -CMYK Screenprint Bluecoat, 23 Feb, 11am-5pm CMYK Screenprint is an advanced screenprinting technique whereby a colour photograph is digitally transformed into a series of dotted layers --

4. Funding and Fundraising (Artist Professional Development) Heart of Glass, Beechams Gallery, 12 Feb, 10am-4pm This session will highlight the various funding avenues and options available for socially engaged practitioners, including trusts, foundations, individual giving and sponsorship.

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-Film Noir: The Art of Darkness John Archer Hall, 18 Feb, 6:30pm Through a series of screening and discussions we will explore the history of Film Noir, from the long shadows that German Expressionism cast over Hollywood, to its abiding influence within contemporary TV

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Etsy Intermediate Workshop Static Gallery, 25 Feb, 6-9pm Ideal for people who have been selling on Etsy for a little while, have had some sales, and wish to improve their views and sales. .

CLASSIFIEDS Welcome to our new classifieds page. Whether its workshops, or local handmade gifts you’re after, from now on you’ll be able to find it here, with artists and makers invited to take advantage of cheaper ad space with just as many readers, the classifieds page will keep you up to date with events outside our usual listings.

Etsy.com/shop/ Cherrytreeliverpool

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Local handmade jewellery

Happy hunting.

Dear Artists, Are you an artist, maker or small creative organisation looking to reach more people? In our twelfth issue (yep, we’ve managed one full year!) we decided to ask a handful of readers what they wanted to see in our second year, and one thing that was abundantly clear was that for those readers who also work in the creative industries, advertising space is a really difficult thing to come by.

Our adverts have always been restricted to visual art and relevant supporting groups from around the industry, and we’ll absolutely be keeping it that way, but for smaller organisations and individuals offering creative services the full page ads can be a massive stretch, so as well as the free listings we’re implementing a classified page -strictly limited to artists & makers - to give a little more space at a much littler price.

If you’re running workshops, or selling goods; if you have an etsy page, or teach your craft to others; if you’re about to launch a brilliant independent exhibition or you’re part of something big elsewhere, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

Get in touch with kathy@artinliverpool.com who’ll be looking after our classified page & can answer all your questions.

Prices are £25 per box, with a few examples above - including our first two classified advertisers, Wirral Society of Arts and Cherrytree Liverpool, both of whom you should definitely know more about!

JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES

For more details on all opportunities, including links on how to apply, head to www.artinliverpool.com/opportunities-2/ To send us details on jobs or opportunities for artists, email info@artinliverpool.com

JOBS Doctoral Studentships in the School of Art – University of Liverpool The School of the Arts is offering up to six fully funded PhD studentships, to cover fees and living allowance, to commence on 1st October 2019 DEADLINE: 28th February 2019

CALLS

Collections Assistant Digital Access & Engagement, Gallery Oldham Maximise the use of digital to widen access, increase enjoyment and learning, and develop the heritage offer DEADLINE: 11th February 2019 --

Desk spaces available in the Ranch design studio The Ranch is a design studio & creative coworking space, on the 2nd floor of Arrad Street Creative Studios. £120 per month, this includes your desk, wifi and storage space within a coworking space.

Contact johnwaterworth86@gmail.com

CreArt Curators Seminar – Applications open The seminar is open to local curators and artists that are living, studying or working, in any of the cities taking part in CreArt DEADLINE: 15th February 2019

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CreArt OPEN CALL. Artist in Residence in Kaunas/Lithuania 2019 Kaunas, Lithuania invites 4 artists from the CreArt Network to work for one month in Kaunas AiR in the period of April 23 – May 23, 2019 DEADLINE: 20th February 2019

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-Senior Studio Instructor/Engineer – LJMU The Liverpool Screen School is located at the heart of this activity and delivers an expanding programme of courses within the disciplines of media, film, journalism, the performing arts and creative writing DEADLINE: 17th February 2019

Welder/metal worker/fabricator, Take 1 Scenic A construction company building bespoke scenery, props, and furniture for creative industries such as Film, TV, live events and more DEADLINE: 7th February 2019 --

-Calderstones Volunteer Coordinator, The Reader The Calderstones Volunteer co-ordinator will build on our existing volunteer strategy and develop a programme of opportunities DEADLINE: 7th February 2019

Finance Manager, Sentric Music Based in Baltic Triangle in Liverpool, the Finance Manager will be integral to managing the company accounts, payment platforms and financial procedures DEADLINE: 6th February 2019 --

-Marketing & Communications Officer – National Trust Work on marketing and communications across the Liverpool and Lancashire portfolios through a range of traditional and digital channels DEADLINE: 17th February 2019 -Regional STEM Ambassador Hub Manager, Science Museum Group Are you a passionate about improving opportunities for young people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects?

DEADLINE: 4th February 2019 -Lime Artist/Printmaker in Residence Lime is seeking experienced artist/ printmaker who can work with Nursing and Midwifery staff and patients at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust DEADLINE: 13th February 2019

Hire & Building Co-Ordinator – Aspex A crucial role, with key responsibility to drive income generation through development of venue hire.

DEADLINE: 11th February 2019 -THG Gallery & Arts Development Manager (Devon) Thelma Hulbert Gallery is an ambitious gallery that supports and promotes contemporary art and craft DEADLINE: 10th February 2019

Studio and storage spaces - The Well The Well has been a home to many artists from a variety of disciplines for over 10 years. We are situated on Roscoe Street, in the heart of the city. Priced between £70 and £120 per month depending on the space, the best option is to arrange to come and look around and see what space could suit your needs.

Contact wellartiststudios@gmail.com -Art in Windows – Open Call Art In Windows is inviting proposals for month-long shows in two outstanding windows in an empty, grade II listed building in Liverpool’s city centre DEADLINE: 28th February 2019 -Calling all sculptors – The Liverpool Plinth For the second year running, the BID is collaborating with Liverpool Parish Church, also known as St Nick’s, and city gallery and art organisation, dot-art, to bring an exciting new piece of art to The Liverpool Plinth DEADLINE: 28th March 2019 --

-The Edge programme & Exhibitions Assistant (University of Bath) University of Bath are seeking a confident individual with arts projects and events experience to join the Office for the Arts programme team DEADLINE: 10th February 2019

FACT – Open call for artists: Resolution FACT are seeking to commission an artist, art collective, or design studio with experience of designing participatory learning experiences to create and produce a Knowledge Library DEADLINE: 8th February 2019 --

-Spike Island – Deputy Director The Deputy Director will lead on the administrative, legal, commercial, operational and financial management of Spike Island.

DEADLINE: 8th February 2019

Call for Artists – Wirral Society of Arts 9th Open Exhibition 2019 Wirral Society of Arts biennial exhibition is open to all artists – local, national and international – at all stages in their careers.

DEADLINE: 1st July 2019

-Call for Proposals: The Arthole Artists’s Award 2019/20 LADA’s “Arthole Artist’s Award” supports a ground-breaking and inspirational UK-based artist working in Live Art to undertake a self-determined year-long research and artistic development programme DEADLINE: 4th March 2019 -Fringe Arts Bath Festival, Call to Artists Inviting Artists and Creatives from across the globe to respond to 20 exhibition and event proposals by early career curators DEADLINE: 17th March 2019 -Diverse Actions Leadership Bursaries, 2019/20 – LADA LADA is offering two Leadership Bursaries of £10,000 each for artists and/ or arts workers from culturally diverse backgrounds (BME: Black and Minority Ethnic) as part of Live Art UK’s three-year Diverse Actions programme DEADLINE 25th February 2019 -Gif-making workshop practitioner, Blackpool Museum Project Blackpool Museum Project is seeking practitioners/company to deliver a drop in Gif making workshop at the Winter Gardens Film Festival DEADLINE: 7th February 2019

State.

Looking bad, looking back, reflecting on something; no matter how scousely, or how snobbishly the word is used, it implies a judgement: State of the arts; state of him; state of me; state your case. There’s an issue in finding middle grounds sometimes. You find a case for both sides, each one alienates the other.

To assume everyone needs to understand everything about the arts is mind numbingly blind. To assume not everybody needs to be offered the chance to understand it is mind numbingly blind. Art is not a high and low game, it is a shared experience that enriches people and places, and creates questions, arguments, joy and anger. Why should we the public be told that public sculpture and public events created by artists are community building, identity defining, reuniting things, when all we want is for the Sayer’s we used to meet in to reopen. That would solve a lot, that quiet coffee in the company of friends with a veggie sausage roll predating the Greggs vegan revolution. Local identity is in more than major events, it’s in our every day. Look at the public sculpture left over in the city. State of that. State of the art. Then look at public spaces and the cafes filled with art about our local streets which states its claim to the wall it hangs from, and genuinely relates to our every day. Not that all art needs to reflect the local, but there are artists in this city, sitting quietly, observing from cafes, their communities, and their regeneration or degeneration. The shared experiences create ideas that turn into sculpture, photography, painting, games, performance, which happens in galleries and theatres in other towns. Not to state the bleeding obvious, but those are the artists who deserve to state their claim on the city; who can state the truth and enrich our lives through delivering work in the community; who are in the state they’re in because identity is definable in sterling.