Spin members are invited to join us on a weekend visit to the Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art. Established in 1998, it takes place every two years and is a collaboration between the citys long-established arts organisations including Tate Liverpool, The Walker Art Gallery, Bluecoats Arts Centre, Open Eye Gallery and FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology), as well as smaller galleries and independent venues.
The four main strands of the festival are:
John Moores 24 – Exhibition of Contemporary Painting at the Walker Art Gallery
This is the UKs most prestigious and longest running national open painting competition. It celebrates the vitality of contemporary British painting and offers a first prize of £25,000. From an initial selection of 268 shortlisted paintings, this years jury made up of Sir Peter Blake, Tracey Emin, Jason Brookes and Andrea Rose, whittled it down to 52 paintings. Martin Greenland picked up the winning cheque for his invented landscape, Before Vermeers Clouds. The sky in his painting is copied from A View of Delft by Jan Vermeer, a work that has fascinated the artist for 30 years.
New Contemporaries at the Coach Shed
This strand of the festival gives artists who are still at, or just after, art school the opportunity to show their work in the context of a professional gallery. The selectors were Angus Fairhurst, Paul Noble and Alison Wilding.
International 06 Various Venues around Liverpool (including Tate Liverpool, Bluecoat, FACT and Open Eye Gallery)
Gerardo Mosquera, an art critic, lecturer, historian and writer based in Havana, and Manray Hsu, a critic and curator based in Taipei and Berlin, have been appointed to work with the Liverpool Biennale team. Together, they have selected 40 artists who were invited to research and propose new commissions for the city. Artists include Philippe Parreno, Monica Bonvicini, Simryn Gil, Teresa Margolles and Mark Bradford.
The Independents Biennal Various Venues around Liverpool
A programme of activity initiated by artists and curators working in Liverpool including exhibitions, live art, performances, interventions and happenings.
We will be visiting the best of what the Liverpool Biennial has to offer on Saturday 11 November and Sunday 12 November 2006.
For more information about the Liverpool Biennial see www.biennial.com
