29 July 2008

15 public realm commissions announced for Liverpool Biennial

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of its foundation by James Moores as well as Liverpool’s year as
European Capital of Culture, the forthcoming edition of Liverpool Biennial will be even more impressive in
scale and ambition than its predecessors, with a significantly expanded programme of temporary artists’
projects in the public realm including 3 large scale commissions by leading international architects.

MADE UP is the title of the 2008 Biennial International exhibition, an exploration of the ecology of the
artistic imagination. A reaction to the pervasive documentary focus of much contemporary art, the
exhibition highlights the emotional charge within the artistic imagination and our fascination with and need for ‘making things up’. Within a programme of over 30 new commissions, 15 impressive commissions for public spaces throughout the city extends MADE UP beyond the gallery, carving out spaces for dreams
and the imagination amidst the everyday, whether in imaginary models made manifest as real examples,
or playful re-workings of the real.

Consultant artist on Herzog de Meuron’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium, Ai Weiwei once again looks to nature for
inspiration for his MADE UP project, Web of Light. The artist will weave a spider’s web across the entirety
of the prominent city centre square, Exchange Flags. Constructed using steel cables and LED lighting
arranged to replicate a giant web, at its heart Web of Light supports a crystal chandelier in the form of a
spider. Situated behind the city’s town hall, this highly ambitious project makes space for dreams and the
imagination at the political and financial heart of the city.

Dedicated to the ‘practice of lively space’, for MADE UP Atelier Bow Wow will create an open air theatre
at the heart of the city centre. Sited on an empty plot whose hoarding is currently used by flyposters to
advertise the city’s local music scene, Atelier Bow Wow’s theatre will transform the site itself into a venue
for music and performance. Rockscape takes its inspiration from the sandstone (as much as the music)
which forms the bedrock of the city, and marries rocky topography with the classical form of the ancient
greek theatre, to create a stepped structure extruding from the contours of the irregularly shaped site. In the absence of scheduled performances, the city itself will take centre stage, as visitors are invited to sit in the theatre and enjoy commanding views of the surrounding area.

Manfredi Beninati’s installations transport us to fictitious worlds, redolent of half forgotten memories. For
MADE UP, he reveals behind the façade of an apparently abandoned building, a secretly inhabited
apartment.

Launching on 20.08.2008 in honour of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Year, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
playfully reinvent the tradition of the public park in this new commission for Liverpool Biennial. Arbores
Laetae (Joyful Trees) transforms a brownfield site situated on a key arterial route into the city centre, into a beautiful wooded space for contemplation. Covered with vibrant hornbeam trees formally planted in a grid pattern, at the heart of this ‘natural’ grove, 3 trees will slowly rotate. In place of the familiar movement of shade according to the rotation of the earth around the sun, here shade migrates at an artificial speed, transforming the familiar patterns of the natural world into artificial creations. Arbores Laetae invites us to marvel at nature at its most unnatural.

Leandro Erlich’s installations challenge our perception of reality, inviting us to immerse ourselves in multisensory experiences or participate in complex fictional narratives. For MADE UP, Leandro Erlich
marries the familiar domestic architecture of an apartment with a real time carousel. Carousel or the task
of being in the right place at the right time encourages us to revisit the apparent constancy of the
everyday, and feel and reflect upon movement, time and space.

Alison Jackson explores the slippage between fantasy and reality in the contemporary obsession with
celebrity culture. Well known for her photographs apparently capturing moments in the private lives of
celebrities, her work playfully critiques our readiness to believe, as much as the paparazzi industry which
continues to fuel our appetite for celebrity stories. Visitors to the Biennial should expect to encounter
several celebrity art lovers in the city for MADE UP!

Jesper Just’s films mix a rich visual aesthetic with dark humour to create highly ambiguous narratives
exploring human emotion and the social construction of gender. His new film for MADE UP, Romantic
Delusions, a co-commission with first Danish Quadrennial for contemporary art, U-Turn, is shot in
Bucharest and Constantza and explores how the conventions of personal relationships are mirrored at the
level of the social and political. In Romantic Delusions, the tensions emerging in the idealised political
vision of a blissfully united newly expanded Europe, are explored through the story of a problematic
personal relationship.

Otto Karvonen will distribute humorous and playful instructions around the city, in a series of signs which
cross breed personal observation with the formal language of street signage. Based on interviews with
Liverpool residents, Karvonen’s signs are designed to capture different urban realities and interpretations, emphasising the multitude of perspectives from which a city can be viewed.

Yayoi Kusama creates a new infinity mirror room for MADE UP. Accessed by only one person at a time,
Gleaming Lights of the Souls will embody ‘…an almost hallucinatory approach to reality’.

Working in film, installation, and sculpture, Gabriel Lester’s work explores and exploits the strategies and
sleights of hand that cause us to suspend our disbelief. In a new film, Lester reflects on the human desire
to transcend earthbound existence and reach an alternate plane. The Last Smoking Flight playfully
situates clouds of tobacco amidst the clouds to explore humanity’s stubborn denial of the reality of life.

Annette Messager’s highly theatrical installations occupy a space somewhere between the fairytale and
the grotesque, provoking both amusement and horror, pleasure and fear. Employing a diverse array of
materials, including fabric, found objects and disembowelled stuffed toys, in recent years her work has
incorporated movement to explore the contradictions inherent in the self – good and bad, sacred and
profane, life and death. For MADE UP, she creates a new site specific installation in the former ABC
cinema.

Yoko Ono’s work frequently consists of an invitation to participate in an act of the imagination. For MADE
UP, she invites visitors to donate stepladders to her project Liverpool Skyladders. Exhibited in the ruins of
St. Luke’s Church, over the course of the Biennial a forest of stepladders will grow inside.

Tomas Saraceno will present the latest module in an ongoing series of architectural prototypes for a city
built in the air. In the context of climate change, as well as the increasing demands placed on the earth’s
resources by a growing population, Saraceno’s ‘biospheres’ offer a solution, both practical and magical,
to man’s problems. Inspired by the utopian architecture of Buckminster Fuller, Tomas Saraceno’s
transparent biospheres belong at once to the world of science and the world of art.

Sarah Sze creates intricate landscapes from everyday materials (tacks, cotton buds, ladders, desk lamps)
arranged in a succession of ever more precarious dependencies. Highly organic, her installations are like
elaborate ecosytems, colonising the space they inhabit, seducing and detaining us with their complexity.
For MADE UP, Sze creates a new installation within a stairwell in the Bluecoat - a whirlwind of activity,
caught in mid-gestation, travelling through successive floors to nest in the ceiling above.
Richard Woods transforms real surfaces into cartoon like versions – whether in his overtly fake wooden
floors; or hand printed renderings of brick or Tudor architecture. For MADE UP, Woods moves his attention from ‘real’ architecture to the conventions of temporary surfaces intended to conceal and disguise – the numerous hoardings erected around buildings or building sites and decorated with screenprinted logos.

Lewis Biggs Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial said, "Liverpool Biennial's commissions outside the
gallery are a powerful way of involving the widest public, and have become one of the international
exhibition's best-loved features. This year's bumper crop for MADE UP will be not only surprising and
enjoyable, but will inspire further thought about how art can impact on the developing cityscape."

Peter Mearns, Executive Director of Marketing at the Northwest Regional Development Agency
(NWDA), one of the event’s principle sponsors, said “Liverpool Biennial has proved itself to be an
outstanding event of international standing and the NWDA is delighted to be able to support it in 2008.
This year’s event promises to be one of the highlights of the Capital of Culture programme and will again
reflect the region’s world class cultural offering. The Biennial plays an important role in showcasing both
Liverpool and England’s Northwest to the UK and overseas, increasing the profile of the region as a leader
in innovative visual culture.”

Councillor Warren Bradley, leader of Liverpool city council and deputy chair of the Liverpool
Culture Company, said: "Over the past decade the Biennial has firmly established itself as one of the
cornerstones of Liverpool's cultural offer, and as an event of international significance it attracts tens of
thousands of visitors from across the UK and beyond. It is extremely fitting that the festival will mark such
an important milestones in its development during Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture.
Previous Biennials have brought some really significant work to the city and I'm looking forward to a
programme for 2008 that will excite and challenge in equal measures."

ENDS

Notes to Editors
 The Liverpool Biennial 2008 festival of contemporary visual art is presented by Liverpool Biennial, with the Walker Art Gallery
(National Museums Liverpool), John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust, and New Contemporaries at Greenland Street (A
Foundation). It involves many smaller city centre galleries and alternative spaces.
 1 in 3 of the commissioned artists have represented their country at the Venice Biennale.
 The public realm commissions for MADE UP are supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency, as well as
many other UK and international partners including the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Henry Moore Foundation.
Ai Weiwei’s Web of Light is part of the year long public realm programme, commissioned by Liverpool Culture Company as
part of European Capital of Culture 2008 and managed by Liverpool Biennial.
 Established in 1998, Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest and most widely reviewed festival of contemporary visual art, and
contributed significantly to the award of the title European Capital of Culture 2008 to the city of Liverpool. It is a major player
in the cultural economy: the 2006 festival received 400,000 visitors, 50% travelling from outside the Merseyside region and
created an additional £13.5m spend in the city. The 2004 festival won the Northwest regional title Best Tourism Event and
was runner up (to The London Eye) for the accolade Best Tourism Experience in the national Enjoy England Awards for
Excellence organised by Visit Britain.
 Liverpool Biennial is funded by:
Founded by James Moores with the support of
Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008
For further media information please contact: Catharine Braithwaite on 07947 644 110 or
cat@we-r-lethal.com