BIENNALS:Liverpool Biennial 2018,Part III

Mohamed Bourouissa, Untitled, 2014. Image courtesy the artists and Kamel Mennour, Paris/London. Photo: Lucia Thomé (USA, 1991) © ADAGP, Paris, 2018Presented in locations across Liverpool including public spaces and the city’s leading art venues, the 10th edition of Liverpool Biennial invited 40 artists from 22 countries, who participate in the programme, responding to the theme set by the Curators. As an additional strand, “Worlds within worlds” invites audiences to explore the rich histories and stories evoked by objects and artefacts from the city’s civic Collections and Architecture. In this article we present you some of the participating artists and their work (Part I, Part II).

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Liverpool Biennial Archive

Madiha Aijaz in her new video work “These Silences Are All the Words” explores the public libraries of Karachi, Pakistan, against the backdrop of the changing landscape of the city. Focusing on librarians who have been working for years in traditional institutions, Aijaz tells the stories of an aging intelligentsia. The conversations explore how librarians and the library’s users reflect on the city outside the library’s walls, and the shift of language from Urdu and its poetic and literary history to the ambition and individualism associated with English. Francis Alÿs presents a selection of postcard size paintings at Victoria Gallery & Museum. Executed in the tradition of classic plein air painting, the paintings also allude to the condition of global tourism of our contemporary art scene. Many were done while scouting new locations for future film projects, from the Middle East to South America or China. Working in Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, Alÿs has never shied away from conflict zones. In 2016, he accepted a residency in Iraq, where he worked with local artists and refugees. On another stay, he was embedded with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces on the Mosul frontline, taking the role of a war artist documenting the fight against ISIS with brush and paint. For Liverpool Biennial, Alÿs’s paintings are displayed along a timeline going from the 1980s to today under the title “Age Piece”. Ei Arakawa produced a new LED painting, the work is based on paintings by Silke Otto-Knapp, whose large-scale canvases will be presented at Bluecoat and Victoria Gallery & Museum in the framework of the Biennial. Arakawa is particularly interested in performance, and will collaborate with Otto-Knapp to communicate the dancers depicted in her work through his pixelated painting. An audio component creates a sound show that attracts visitors from afar. Mohamed Bourouissa will create a film and a community garden. The project is inspired by a garden made by a patient of the psychoanalyst and writer Frantz Fanon at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in Blida, Algeria. Fanon proved that the failure of occupational therapy in Algeria was caused by lack of consideration of the patients’ societal background. His patient underwent occupational therapy through gardening, reflecting the organisation of his mental space in the structure of his garden. Bourouissa will learn the patient’s approach to botany, architecture and therapy, and create a similar garden working with local community, gardeners, school pupils, teachers and artists. The garden is conceived as a space of ‘resilience’, a concept and term used in psychology, ecology and natural science. Some of the chosen plants are from an unfinished Algerian herbarium of the 1950s and Bourouissa will draw the missing plants, as well as creating a new film capturing the reconstitution of the herbarium within the Cloître des Glycines in Algiers. Joseph Grigely presents works from his “Songs without Words” series at Victoria Gallery & Museum. Based on newspaper images of singers and musicians, the works explore the representation and communication of sound. Taken from the New York Times, the series features images of people such as the opera singer Andrea Bocelli, or the American singer and actor Eartha Kitt. By removing the captions accompanying the images, Grigely points towards the significance of contextual information. Without the captions, the singers’ poses concentrate our attention on their ambiguity, as if we are watching the world with the sound turned off. Suki Seokyeong Kang’s new multi-part installation “Land Sand Strand” (working title), is conceived as a visual translation of the Korean musical notation ʻisual tran’. Jeongganbo is based on square units, so-called ‘Jeongs‘, which act as instructions for the musician. The work transforms the exhibition space into a grid that connotes movement and narrative. The installation also builds on the concept of the hwamunseok, a traditional Korean woven mat, which Kang addressed in her series “Mat Black Mat”. The Mat Black Mat is interpreted as the minimal space with which each individual in society is provided, the place in which to stand and sustain one’s weight. Within the installation, it will be activated through a performance inspired by the choreography of the Spring Oriole Dance, a solo dance traditionally performed on the hwamunseok. The movements on the mat serve as the blueprint for the installation and its single elements, including painting, sculpture and video. In the Wolfson Gallery of Tate Liverpool, Haegue Yang created a new environment for her sculpture series, “The Intermediates” (2015-ongoing). Made from artificial woven straw, the series allude to both traditional arts and crafts techniques and modern industrial production methods. Representing figures and sites from folk tales and ancient traditions in a variety of configurations, they question definitions of ‘paganism’. Yang’s immersive installation environment for these works will include suspended sound stations broadcasting recordings of wildlife taken from the British Library’s sound collection. A new digitally produced wallpaper, developed in collaboration with Mike Carney, reflects on the exhibition as well as juxtaposing illusions to pagan traditions and modern history.

Info: Curators: Kitty Scott and Sally Tallant, Liverpool Biennial 2018, Various locations, Liverpool, Duration: 14/7-28/8/18, www.biennial.com

Ei Arakawa, Harsh Citation, Harsh Pastoral, Harsh Münster, 2017. Installation view at Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017. Photo: Henning Rogge
Ei Arakawa, Harsh Citation, Harsh Pastoral, Harsh Münster, 2017. Installation view at Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017. Photo: Henning Rogge

 

 

Haegue Yang, The Grand Balcony, 2016. Installation view at La Biennale de Montréal. Photo: Guy L'Heureux
Haegue Yang, The Grand Balcony, 2016. Installation view at La Biennale de Montréal. Photo: Guy L’Heureux

 

 

Ei Arakawa, Kissing The Canvas with Jutta Koether's La Femme, 2012. Image courtesy the artist. Photo: Tate Modern, London, UK
Ei Arakawa, Kissing The Canvas with Jutta Koether’s La Femme, 2012. Image courtesy the artist. Photo: Tate Modern, London, UK

 

 

Francis Alÿs, Green Line, 2004. Image courtesy the artist
Francis Alÿs, Green Line, 2004. Image courtesy the artist

 

 

Mohamed Bourouissa, Horse Day (film still), 2014-15. Image courtesy the artist and Kamel Mennour, Paris/London
Mohamed Bourouissa, Horse Day (film still), 2014-15. Image courtesy the artist and Kamel Mennour, Paris/London

 

 

Francis Alÿs, Color Matching, 2016. Image courtesy the artist. Photo: Akam Shex Hadi
Francis Alÿs, Color Matching, 2016. Image Courtesy the artist. Photo: Akam Shex Hadi

 

 

adiha Aijaz, These Silences Are All The Words, 2017-2018. Installation view at The Tetley, 2018. Image courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo: Jules Lister
adiha Aijaz, These Silences Are All The Words, 2017-2018. Installation view at The Tetley, 2018. Image courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo: Jules Lister

 

 

Left: Haegue Yang, The Intermediate – Dragon Conglomerate, 2016. Image courtesy the artist. Right: Haegue Yang, The Intermediate – Tilted Bushy-head Junior, 2016. Image courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. Photo: Studio Haegue Yang
Left: Haegue Yang, The Intermediate – Dragon Conglomerate, 2016. Image courtesy the artist. Right: Haegue Yang, The Intermediate – Tilted Bushy-head Junior, 2016. Image courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. Photo: Studio Haegue Yang

 

 

Haegue Yang, Lingering Nous, 2016. Installation view at Centre Pompidou, Paris. Photo: Florian Kleinefenn
Haegue Yang, Lingering Nous, 2016. Installation view at Centre Pompidou, Paris. Photo: Florian Kleinefenn

 

 

Left: Joseph Grigely, Songs Without Words (Eartha Kitt), 2009. Image courtesy the artist. Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Moras on the Black Mat, 2014-2016. Image courtesy the artist
Left: Joseph Grigely, Songs Without Words (Eartha Kitt), 2009. Image courtesy the artist. Right: Suki Seokyeong Kang, Moras on the Black Mat, 2014-2016. Image courtesy the artist

 

 

Madiha Aijaz, These Silences Are All The Words, 2017-2018. Installation view at The Tetley, 2018. Image courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo: Jules Lister
Madiha Aijaz, These Silences Are All The Words, 2017-2018. Installation view at The Tetley, 2018. Image courtesy the artist and The Tetley. Photo: Jules Lister

 

 

Suki Seokyeong Kang, Jeong ¼, 2011-2015. Image courtesy the artist
Suki Seokyeong Kang, Jeong ¼, 2011-2015. Image courtesy the artist