There were so many cool pieces there, but I shall start with Sophie Calle's Hotel Room series:
Calle worked for a short time as a maid in a hotel in Venice; whilst she was there she would document what she would find in a guest's room in an attempt to piece together a story for these guests Calle would never meet. The descriptions of the rooms run over a number of days, so the audience can note the differences that occur and make their own theories of what a guest's life is like - Calle places you in her shoes. These descriptions are accompanied by photos so you also catch glimpses of these occupied rooms. By the end of looking at these I felt particularly nosey, as if I was intruding on something I shouldn't - but you just can't resist taking a peep in other people's lives! Why do we love spying on people so much?
The next piece of work I feel has a similar voyeuristic theme - although I don't think this is the artist's intention! 'Dalam' by Simryn Gill is a series of 258 photographs of the inside of people's living rooms, bedrooms, etc; taken as the artist travelled through Malaysia.
I loved looking at all the different interiors - seeing the little unique objects that each person thinks appropriate for their home! Whilst Gill was travelling she would approach random people's houses and ask if she could come in and take a photo of their main living space - I'm not sure how I would feel if someone came to my house and said that! But she got 258 of them, which shows that many people in Malaysia were willing to show their hospitality to a stranger, which is quite warming!
More photography now, as next on show was Martin Parr's 'Common Sense', which I know has been around for a while now but I've never seen an exhibit of Parr's work so I found it really engaging! What is it with his saturated colours, depicting quite strange/obnoxious subject matter that makes his photos so darn likeable?
Probably my favourite piece in the Tate (as I imagine a lot of other peoples will be!) is Pak Sheung Chuen's 'A Travel without Visual Experience'.
Forgive me if I get my facts about this wrong, but I think what this artist did was travel from one place to another (apologies for my poor memory!) with a camera and his eyes closed. He would take photos when he felt the moment was right to do so.
These photos are presented in the Tate within a darkroom; to be able to see these you need to have a camera with a flash to be able to see these pictures and navigate your way around the room! That way, you are seeing the photos as the artist saw them and are therefore experiencing his journey. It was pretty darn cool and I urge anyone to go see it (except maybe small children!)
It was a great experience, although I think I would have liked to have seen the photos in full light to really get a look at them all and see the sort of shots that were taken...I know this is defying the point of it all, hence why I am not a fine artist!
Yukinori Yanagi's piece 'Pacific' involves 49 glass boxes filled with sand that make up 49 flags of the world. Yanagi then released ants into the glass boxes (which are all connected) to let them burrow through and do their ant thing in them! What we see is the results of this endeavour (don't worry, the ants have been taken out - although I think I would have preferred to have seen them! But then I imagine the horror if they got loose!)
I will quote what the Liverpool Biennial guide book says, as I feel they describe whats going on in this piece better than I could!
"Thousands of ants were released into the boxes whose movements distributes the sand from one flag to another. Echoing global migration, the ants gradually eroded the borders between different nations."
And lastly from the Tate is Jimmie Durham's sculpture, wait for it, its a long title - 'Dans plusieurs de ces forêts et de ces bois, il n'y avait pas seulement des villages souterrains groupés autours du terrier du chef mais il y avait encore de véritables hameaux de huttes basses cachés sous les arbres, et si nombreaux que parfois la forêt en était remplie. Souvent les fumées les trahissaient. Deux de…'
which translates to: 'In many of these forests and the woods, there was not only subterranean villages grouped around the burrow of the head but there was still real hamlets of low huts hidden under the trees, and if nombreaux sometimes the forest was completed. Often betrayed the fumes. Two ...'
Now I'm not sure what this piece is about, but nevertheless I like it! I like any use of found objects, especially when they're used to make something that looks like a creature - they remind me very much of the sculptures that come to life in Tim Burton's 'Beetlejuice' (awesome film).
So there we have it, my little excursion to see the Liverpool Biennial! Now there were many other impressive pieces at the Tate (as well as other venues!) to see, I was just waffling on about ones that I particularly liked - there is A LOT more to see! (Plus the Turner Monet Twombly exhibition is still going on, and thats definitely worth a look too.)
So get your bums in Liverpool to see the Biennial! Its a great day out and you'll feel very cultured when you get home! You can pick up a guidebook from any old arty place in Liverpool and even in train stations and such - so now you've got no excuse! And awaaaay you gooooo!!!
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