Urban myths and the bittersweet success of regeneration are strong focal points in the International 06 exhibition for Liverpool Biennial 2006. Inspired – in overview and in detail – by Liverpool’s people, history and built environment, the exhibition promises 35 new commissions, half of which will be sited in the public realm, by some of the most exciting artists from across the world – a uniquely crafted ‘total experience’ of new art in a specific cultural context. The personality of the exhibition will be as lively, diverse and quick-witted as Liverpool itself. It will be an extraordinary opportunity to see art engaging with global issues through the specifics of its cultural context.
Priscilla Monge’s football pitch designed as an obstacle course carries a powerful emotional impact with lighthearted irony, whilst Rigo places cages around monumental imperial lions and Teresa Margolles engages with criminal violence by making pavements of shattered glass.
International 06 responds to the personal readings of Liverpool made by consultant curators Gerardo Mosquera and Manray Hsu. Both see art channelling energy into and within the city. Manray Hsu makes use of metaphors drawn from the Internet and from traditional Chinese medicine, while Gerardo Mosquera’s ‘reverse colonialism’ returns the flow of energy along the city’s historic geographic vectors to explore Liverpool here and now. The show’s route through the city punctuates the built environment.
Gerardo Mosquera, from Havana, finds in Liverpool the cultural seeds that blossomed on other continents, such as ‘The Discoverer of the Americas was the Maker of Liverpool’ engraved on the pedestal of Columbus’ statue at Sefton Park’s Palm House. Mosquera is struck by this bold recognition of how the city developed with the historical process of Europe’s expansion and imperial enterprise: trade, piracy, slavery, trade, conquest, colonisation. His reaction is to reverse the direction of colonisation by proposing artists from the Americas and Asia to engage with the city’s post-imperial present.
Manray Hsu’s focus is on the complex web of globalised signs – or ‘hypertexts’ – that overlay fashion, food, music, film, technology and people’s behaviour. When artists are invited to bring new signs into play across the surface of the city, they open a global perspective on cultural specifics to local or travelling visitors. At the same time, in the spirit of traditional Chinese medicine (Manray is from Taiwan), the artworks in the public realm are connected to the chi (energy flow) of the city through their placement at nodal points: ‘acupuncture for the built environment’, or ‘archipuncture’ as Manray calls it, addressing blockages and imbalances in the city’s energies.
International 06 partners include Tate Liverpool, Bluecoat Arts Centre, FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology), and Open Eye Gallery. This collaboration between organisations in the generation of an exhibition is as remarkable as it is unique.
In addition to those mentioned above, artists currently in conversation towards a commission include: Matthew Buckingham, Paul Chan, Chen Chieh-jen, Esra Ersan, Carlos Garaicoa, Shilpa Gupta, Kingpins, Hans Peter Kuhn, Lee Ming-Wei, Kelly Makr, Gianni Motti, Mario Navarro, Lisa Oppenheim, Philippe Parreno, Amalia Pica, Jean-Francois Prost, Shimabuku, Hans Schabus, Julianne Swartz, Sissel Tolaas, Tsui Kuang-yu, Adriana Varejao, Humberto Velez, Matej Andraz Vogrincic, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jun Yang.