Journey in the cities 5th Oct 08

It was great to meet Jam, Lam and Irina and to catch up with Shaw in the am space. Well done to Jam and Lam for setting up such an exciting space. Thank you Shaw for the introductions.

Having attempted to view the Shanghai Biennale via their website Hangfeng’s interesting question as to why the Biennial in Liverpool chose venues that were public spaces (does the audience appreciate those venues?), made me wonder why the Shanghai Biennale curators had placed the artist’s work inside of the institution (and the grounds of the institution – the train) when the curators were proposing that an examination of Peoples Square was a means to engage with “translocalmotion”. There is always the most interesting gap between a curator’s intention and that of the artist’s.
Shaw’s recording of a number of videos in the Biennale did show that a performance had taken place in the square, the live event would have had a different audience than the video in the exhibition, the performance being relatively unmediated by either the medium or institution.
As a practitioner I am more interested in making work that intervenes in the public realm (www.teaweb.org) and I was intrigued by the Shanghai Biennale question “can cities make our lives better?” I assumed that the artists selected for the Biennale were to interrogate this question through their work. Which probably leads to the question raised by Philip “does art make our lives better?” If art is put in the city does it automatically make the city a better place to be?

After the live link on October 5th, Jay Yung and I took a walk through Liverpool to visit two of the more “public” spaces where Biennial projects were being presented.



Above is the warehouse in Sparling Street, this is an industrial warehouse being used by the Bienniel, it is in a few streets between the Dock Rd. and the massive Liverpool 1 regeneration site. Inside the first piece was "Carousel - The task of being in the right place at the right time"



After walking through this piece in the next room was work by Tomas Saraceno "Air-Port-City"



At the end of the room there was a queue of people waiting to enter Yayoi Kusama's "Gleaming Light of the Souls", a white cube with the door hidden around the back. Jay and I joined the queue. The image below shows the interior of the work.



We left the warehouse and walked along the Dock Road to the Albert Dock and saw a performance by Ben Parry and Jaques ? A traditional narrow boat transformed into a fountain.



An interesting journey through the city and the artworks, a journey directed by the artworks and immensely enjoyable. The artworks were available to passersby and to the art seekers, there were elements of entertainment and serious questions being asked by the artists. There was a different "feel" to the work in the warehouse compared to the major institutions, the Tate and the Bluecoat. The work was immersive, it was material, it wasn't suffocated by the institution.

Peter Hatton