FACT, Liverpool: Mark Boulos

I see the FACT in Liverpool pretty much as the sister venue of the Cornerhouse, Manchester I wrote about at my previous post. It's a similarly thriving cultural hub in downtown, the three-story modern design building accommodates a cinema, two gallery spaces and a cosy cafe with an additional exhibition space in the lounge. Its immediate neighbourhood is a busy street, the pair of the main shopping street (which is also nearby), however instead of the big labels it is scattered with charity shops, fair trade stores, ethnic restaurants creating a very pleasant and inclusive atmosphere while approaching the venue. 

FACT @Liverpool

FACT is actually an acronym, it stands for Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.
The lounge provides space to an interesting and indeed unusual project, called Headspace. It's a collaboration between a face-surgeon of the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and artists taking 3D photos of volunteer visitors head including their smile. These photos then will help the surgery practice to improve the technique of face reconstruction undertaken on patients with face injury. The photos are uploaded on the project website as well. The number of volunteered visitors almost reached 1000 at the time of my visit and the Headspace booth will be open until 1 December. Unfortunately they haven't planned an exhibition with the outcome of the project which is a real shame given the interesting artistic side of the technique.

Cafe at FACT

In its galleries FACT presents a retrospective exhibition of Mark Boulos artist and filmmaker. The whole show contains only 4 works from which two really captured my mind. Both show life sequences in form of interviews with members of two illegal groups on the margin of the society. 

No Permanent Address (2010) tells pieces of stories of the New People's Army (NPA), who are based in the Philippine jungle, fighting with guns against the wealthy in the society. The film is shown with three channels on three screens technique and the interviewees talk about their personal reasons for joining the group considered terrorist. A woman who left her husband and family as a consequence of her decision to serve the cause was especially shocking. Other interviewees talk about rules of the group such as how to act when falling in love with other people inside or outside of the organisation.

The other work, All that is Solid Melts into Air (2008), consists of a footage about the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta and another of the capitalist life symbolized in scenes from the stock exchange at the 2008 credit crunch on an other, opposite screen. Both films show strong emotions around oil from opposite ends of the world. Especially in this sharp contrast, the video of the Niger Delta is percieved as a fully exploited community in devastation.



Both videos are very interesting and somewhat touching as these ethnicities are rarely seen as the objects of art. Although the real curiosity is brought by the position of the artist: being a marxist  filmmaker Boulos openly adds his own standing point to the work instead of trying to depict or observe without opinion.

At the rear of the FACT building there's a small exhibition comprised of a voting machine for visitor use with the question "Does capitalism work for you?" and a footage with short interviews when USA residents give their vote and reasoning for the same question. Actually this work has been on show for longer but now it nicely adds a point to Boulos's exhibition.

Overall there are very interesting projects going on in FACT, the exhibition of contemporary art with up-to-date topic I recommend to anyone visiting Liverpool. The duration of the visit is reasonable as well, perfectly suitable when on a daytrip.     

Mark Boulos's exhibition runs until 21 November.

Cornerhouse, Manchester: Double Idemnity

If I have to name my favourite venue in Manchester, than it's the Cornerhouse. I believe many cities of the world has a similar art-hub, but when I moved to Manchester I was truly blown away.

Cornerhouse @Manchester

Cornerhouse accommodates a cinema with 3 screens, an exhibition space with 3 separate galleries, a cafe downstairs often showcasing photo works, a bookshop selling art albums, poetry magazines and so on, and another cafe-bar to just sit back and chill out. I'm quite a regular visitor of the cinema as this is the only one in Manchester showing European films that I'm fond of, but I also keep an eye on the ever changing exhibition agenda of contemporary artists.

This time I expected a very interesting collection organised around a topic of desire. The artworks are inspired by Billy Wilder's classic film noir, Double Idemnity - the exhibition has the same title. The installations reflect on different characters of the film who represent objects of male desire, desire of youth, bureaucracy, desire for consumption (communication technologies).  I've found this concept a certainly exciting and unusual choice and I hugely regretted I hadn't seen the film.  As rarely I am, I wasn't disappointed this time either - the newly commissioned works on display all add something to the subject in a non-ready-made way. They made me think what they mean to myself and left me with unclear answers - the process and outcome I like in a visit of contemporary exhibition.

The variety of the used media was wide, I especially found a work by Bunny Rogers & Filip Olszewski (Choir) a pleasant surprise that uses the medium of sound - children singing - as a major element of the installation. 
The other exciting surprise work was Anicka Yi's Mutual Glaze that used a fragrance as a centre of the piece thus transcend the border of visual art.

There were video installations that I would have wanted to watch in whole, but unfortunately being too long (around half an hour, up to 1,5 hrs!) I just had a (long) glimpse - and I found other visitors doing the same (or even shorter glimpse). 

I wonder what would have been the experience if I had seen the film before the visit, how much the artists reflected to the film and what would I have noticed of that. However the subject of desire being universal and the focal point of some of the installations very topical, I wasn't short of reference points and could fully enjoy the exhibition.

I certainly recommend this exhibition to anyone who doesn't dislike nor cynical about contemporary art and I suggest to pick up a leaflet, read the short gallery introductions on the walls to understand and enjoy the visit more.

Double Idemnity in the Cornerhouse on display until 5 Jan 2014 (Sunday)

Manchester Art Gallery

Today I went to my new (old) city's art gallery that I had visited few times before. One of the best thing in the UK is that there's free entry to the majority of museums, so budget limits never stop me from checking out new exhibitions.

The museum is just few metres away from Piccadilly Gardens, the heart of Manchester and consists of two buildings actually connected with a glass corridor and hall.

Manchester Art Gallery

Most of the exhibition spaces are used for the display of the permanent collection: British paintings from Victorian times throughout the centuries until modern and contemporary era. The pieces are periodically organised into rooms and the older ones don't raise my interest much with an exception of well-known Bristolian graffiti artist Banksy's work "Love is in the air" hanging totally out of the blue in the Early 19th century room!

(Btw if you are in England, I strongly advise to visit Bristol, home town of Banksy where he started his career. You can see some of his famous works on the streets and anyways it's a very pretty city, loads to see and do.) 

Graffiti in Bristol

The highlight of today's visit is the Radical Figures: Post-war British Figurative Painting exhibition in one of the small rooms used for temporary collections. The works are individually exciting (the absolute favourites are Francis Bacon's painting of the "screaming popes" series and Euan Uglow's "With eyes wide open") and as a selection it manages to showcase the variety of styles, influences and topics of the era. I would have liked to see more paintings of this kind.

Interior of Manchester Art Gallery

The temporary exhibition at the top level is also quite interesting, it's a collection of works around the topic of Britain's transformation from heavy-industrialized country to the domination of the entertainment industry. The story is told through a number of areas, such as family trees of famous singers where we see that all the ancestors were coal miners, blacksmiths or similar, or there was a factory "house rules" on display with conditions that would be considered terribly cruel today. The most shocking pieces were photos of Amazon warehouse with km-long shelves where workers wore machines meant to monitor working speed thus helping efficiency. Also one of the explanation text said the majority of warehouse workers are on zero hours contract. It really made me think about the conditions this post-industrialized state can offer to people and if this is the reason for some retailers' cheap prices, how acceptable is that. 

The exhibition is called All That Is Solid Melts Into Air and is on display until 19 January 2014.

All in all, I can recommend for art lovers to pay a visit to the gallery in their spare time as it's free, but don't expect to be amazed by lot of exciting contemporary artwork or famous paintings - this museum is on a lower scale and the majority of collection is from old times.
 

Introduction of the project

One of my biggest passion is travelling! And the other one is visiting museums. This blog is a joint venture of the two while I'm giving my opinion and suggestion to anyone interested in visiting museums around the world.

I'm going to post reviews of museums and exhibitions I have visited in various cities and countries hoping that my opinion will help blog-readers to choose between museums when on holiday, prompt them to visit the local gallery so far avoided or start discussion with fellow museum hoppers about the experience.

Generally saying, I much prefer art galleries than any other themed museums and within visual arts my very favourites are the contemporary exhibitions. However I enjoyed few science and technology museums a lot, such as Munich's Deutsches Museum or Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) - both of them kept me there for almost a whole day!

As a reference, my top picks are:
Reina Sofia, Madrid
Ludwig Museum, Budapest
Caixa Forum, Madrid
Tate Modern, London
Government Art Collection (unique and travelling exhibition, seen it in Leeds Art Gallery)