Tabitha Moses Wins Liverpool Art Prize 2013

Victory all round tonight for Tabitha Moses, as she scooped both the Art Prize and People’s Choice Awards.

Tonight (Wednesday 29 may) at a ceremony in the Albert Dock, this year’s hub for the Liverpool Art Prize, an audience was invited to attend the announcement of 2013′s winning artist. Liverpool-born Tabitha Moses was presented with this title, along with the pride of winning the People’s Choice Award.

Maureen Bampton, director of the Bluecoat Display Centre and mother of the recently deceased Liverpool-born artist Joe Bampton, who tragically died in a ballooning accident in Egypt this year, presented the first award. Maureen spoke about the importance of the People’s Choice award for both her and her son, who strongly believed in the democratically decided selection process. The award is sponsored by the Bampton family and is presented to the artist chosen via a public poll. Moses was the proud recipient of the award, which includes a cash sum of £1000.

Next came the big one: The Liverpool Art Prize 2013, which grants the winner a prize sum of £2000 plus a solo exhibition at Th Walker Art Gallery. From the 4 short-listed artists Kevin Hunt, Tabitha Moses, Julieann O’Malley and Laurence Payot, Moses once again reigned supreme. The Art Prize winner was selected by a panel of judges, including Arts Editor (Liverpool Daily Post) Laura Davies, artist Tim Etchells, Liverpool Biennial Director Sally Tallant and last year’s winner Robyn Woolston.

Tabitha Moses accepted both awards with self-deprecating shock and grace, and in the opinion of this reporter, thoroughly deserves her success. Her winning piece, The Wish is an intensely personal work which responds to her experience of infertility, contemplating the elusive child in a holographic image merging together the artist and her partner. This piece is part of a series of works based on this very delicate theme, including In Vitro, which recreates the image of embryos on a petri dish. Be My Parent, a series of mixed media pieces in which the Textiles MA artist embroiders paper, explores the idea of adoption and the potential of a child just out of reach; a powerful image illustrating an equally important subject matter, with its title taken from the name of a national adoption organisation.

The Art Prize exhibition, including works by all 4 short-listed artists, continues until 8 June at the Grand Hall, The Colonades, Albert Dock, Liverpool L3 4AA.

This piece was written for http://www.artinliverpool.com

Sander/Weegee at The Bluecoat

Sander/Weegee, part of The Bluecoat’s programme for regional photography festival LOOK/13, brings together two of the most prolific photographers of the twentieth century; August Sander and Arthur Fellig.

August Sander was a German portrait and documentary photographer, whose work here spans the 1920s-30s. Famous for his portraits of German society, Sander published his first book Face of Our Time in 1929, showcasing much of his best and most original work.

Sander’s work on display at The Bluecoat incorporates the scale and human interest of his photography: not just interested in the German elite, Sander photographed many working class subjects, including teachers, farmers and gypsies. Perhaps the most striking image of his is ‘Angelhöriger der Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ (member of Hitler’s S.S. Bodyguard). This image captures the smug self-importance of a powerful and dangerous young man, whose youth perhaps hints at the brainwashing rife in Hitler’s regime. Next to this image, is a photograph of ‘Landstreicher’/Tramps (1929 – pictured, right) which conveys a carefree attitude from the subjects, who are clearly destitute compared with the S.S. guard on the right, but infinitely more appealing to the viewer despite their obviously impoverished appearance.

Some of Sander’s pieces can be viewed as humorous, like the Small Town Innkeeper and his wife, whose uncannily similar appearances make them look like a pair of Lewis Carroll caricatures. Other images illustrate the gulf between rich and poor in 1930s Germany, maing Sander a great documenter of social history.

Athur Fellig (nicknamed Weegee, after the Ouija board, as he was known for his suspiciously foresighted arrivals at crime scenes only minutes after an emergency) was an American newspaper photographer famous for his gritty images of New York in the 1930s and 40s.

Weegee’s work illustrates the dark underside of a city which hid poverty and crime under a mask of glamour and prosperity. His photographs often depict immigrants and other low-income minorities, who are the victims of terrible tragedies, including tenement fires, murders and petty crime. Weegee’s images are shot in stark black and white but their depth and depiction of raw human emotion is more vibrant than technicolor.

Many of his subjects are the perpetrators of heinous crimes, including gangsters and other ‘infamous’ underground city dwellers, shielding their faces from the lens, whilst photographs of contemporary transvestites lap up the attention of the camera as he captures their late-night escapades from the back of a police wagon.

In other images in the exhibition, Weegee captures the bustling atmosphere and vivacity of everyday life in New York. Crowd at Coney Island (1940) depicts millions of revellers out in the sunshine, and is ironically described by the photographer as a ‘quiet Sunday afternoon’. Weggee certainly had a knack for creating images of city life in full swing, photographing couples absorbed in each other on a park bench, or a bagel-seller walking to work in the early morning. His talent for portraying life as we know it earned him notoriety and a lasting reputation as one of the twentieth century’s most iconic documentary photographers.

Sander/Weegee is on at The Bluecoat until 14 July 2013 and is definitely a must-see exhibition.

Written for http://www.artinliverpool.com

Glam!: The Performance of Style, Tate Liverpool

Celebrating the ‘Performance of Style’ Glam! purports to be more concerned with the ‘look’ of glam-rock, and the music is made highly conspicuous by its absence, despite the ‘performance’ of the title…

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are engulfed in a vision of pure glam: from magazine covers and album sleeves, to costume designs and sequinned jackets, glam assaults the eyes from every angle. One salient aspect of the movement remains allusive, however, and this was the most important: the music. Without the music itself, the whole glam era would not have existed. The musical output from legends such as Marc Bolan and David Bowie was instrumental in capturing the attention of the world, who then went on to emulate the image of their glam rock icons. The music created the style, and without it, fans surely could not have held these stars in such high esteem.

This, on the part of Tate curators, could have been a conscious decision in order to highlight the obsession with fakery and the superficial of the 1970s, as Glam! contains memorabilia and archival evidence that people enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be someone else entirely. The opening room of the exhibition, however, makes this seem light-hearted and silly, and conceals the truth that a lot of these people (including images of transvestites) are actually trying to escape from who society has made them, and so the act of faking it is not at all superficial, but actually fuelled by larger societal issues (see the feature on ‘Kenny’ in the second half of the exhibition). I felt that the inspiration/cause behind the glam-rock scene was largely ignored and would have really benefited the collection had it been present.

The exhibition does contain some amazing pieces of glam-rock history, including a costume belonging to Brian Eno and Bolan’s top hat from T. Rex’s The Slider album. My favourite by far in this first half of the exhibition was a video made by a student in the 70s documenting his friends dressing up for a Bryan Ferry concert. The film illustrated how, for young people living in a dull urban environment, the sound of Roxy Music and other glam-rock bands created a fantasy world to which youths could escape to in their sequins and glitter. Although for these students the look was important in order to step away from the everyday, there was no doubt that the film-maker intended the message to be about the escapist element of the music.

For me, the exhibition really came into its own in the second gallery: Glamscape USA; although the shift overseas was not well documented and the chronology of the exhibition (including influences and musical progression) could have been much stronger.

Artists featured in this section included Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and Peter Hujar. The images and messages in this half of the exhibition were infinitely more powerful than the first and spoke volumes about the real, dark underside of the glam world. A study of the collective at Warhol’s studio The Factory was fascinating, including images from behind the scenes of his New York play Pork set to a haunting rendition of I Wanna Be Your Dog. This was one of the only audible pieces of music in the entire exhibition and was not overtly of the glam movement, but was an effective addition to the pieces in the gallery.

Cindy Sherman’s re-working of a Vogue cover starring Jerry Hall, was ironically transformed into an image of her own face, winking at the camera and subverting the conventions of acceptable glamour. I particularly enjoyed Ulay’s images of himself dressed as both man and woman, which play with ideas of androgyny and what it means to be ‘glam’, and worked well alongside images of the New York Dolls and The Cockettes. Punk artist Jimmy de Sana was also on show, with his unnerving self portraits set in bizarre and surreal situations.

The most striking and darkest image by far though was Peter Hujay’s photograph of Factory actress Candy Darling lying on her death bed, with the infamous quote: “Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life . . . I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death… I couldn’t last.” which is a clear comment on the pressures of the industry, covered up by the glamour of clothes and make-up.

Glam! is a fantastic collection of work and the second half of the exhibition especially facilitates an incredible insight into the underworld of the movement. I was disappointed about the lack of music on offer, and also the much hyped Marc Camille Chaimowicz installation, which I felt was irrelevant, but many of the photographs and film clips were stunning and provided a fair introduction into the world of glam.

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty at The Empire, Liverpool

As a huge fan of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake I was admittedly incredibly excited at the prospect of going to see his interpretation of Sleeping Beauty at The Empire this week, and  Bourne’s company New Adventures did not disappoint.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, here is a brief summary of Bourne’s re-imagining of the tale: the King and Queen are in despair, finding themselves unable to conceive a child. Longing for a baby to call their own, they seek the help of the dark fairy Carabosse, who delivers them a daughter. The King, however, does not show Carabosse the gratitude she desires, and so she attempts to kill the child. Thankfully for the Princess, the good fairies are at hand to attempt to undo this wickedness, but only succeed in reducing her sentence to 100 years of sleep, until she is awoken by true love’s kiss…

In a Q&A after the performance, Bourne defined the word ‘ballet’ to the audience: a story told without words. Bourne’s version of a ballet differs from the classical view of the dance form, yet his reinventions of such iconic stories always contain a mixture of classical and  modern choreography, which enables his work to engage a whole new demographic of audience, as well as satisfy and earn the respect of hardcore dance fans. This, he says, is a conscious (not calculated) decision which he embarks upon at the beginning of each production, as he aims to widen the audience for the centuries-old theatre as well as entertain the classical enthusiasts.

For Sleeping Beauty, this combination of classical and modern worked wonders – in more ways than one. Set across 2 completely different periods of time, divided by Aurora’s century of sleep, Bourne’s production begins in 1890. The lavish sets and sumptuous costumes are in perfect harmony with the historical setting, and the first half of the show is dutifully choreographed to reflect a more classical era of dance.

This being said, Bourne’s choreography leaps off the stage, wowing the audience with not just many styles of dance, but many entirely different moods, intended to represent different themes and emotions, for every character. As with all of his ballets, Bourne chooses to subvert gender stereotypes of dance, and bring more focus than is traditional upon the male leads. Although Perrault’s story centres upon a princess, Bourne manages to engage the audience with the male characters equally well, allowing each member of his company the chance to shine.

My favourites in the first Act were the fairies, who each have a distinct personality which is expressed clearly and beautifully through their varying dance styles. The fairies were a joyous presence on stage, and their costumes were my favourite of the whole performance; delicately impish, with a gothic-romantic quality to them.

The use of a puppet for the baby Aurora is also an inspired idea, and Bourne commented that he thought it appropriate for the child-princess to have a personality from the start, as we do not meet the dancer who plays her until much later on. I agree fully with this decision, and the puppet brought some much-appreciated humour to the show, which went down well with the audience and added a new dimension to the story, as the baby puppet scampered around the stage wreaking mayhem with the servant characters.

Later, in a twist from the original tale, Aurora does not prick her finger, but smells a black rose (very clever imagery for the stage) and falls into a century-long sleep on the day of her coming of age. Caradoc, Carabosse’s son is the culprit and his presence on stage is dark and ominous, contrasting beautifully with both Leo (Aurora’s love interest) and Count Lilac (King of the good Fairies) at her birthday party. The party itself is set in the palace gardens, with accurate historical dress for every dancer. There is a lovely dance section where Aurora and Leo are left alone on stage, and their flirtatious, playful pas-de-deux reflects their age and lust perfectly.

After the interval, the story moves on 100 years from Aurora’s 21st birthday to 2011 and we see the place where she sleeps surrounded by contemporary student-types trying in vain to enter the fairy-guarded palace. I felt that this second half took a while to get going, as there was a scene in which Leo (who before the interval receives a bite from the fairy king, allowing him to become a fairy and therefore live until Aurora wakes up) is running through the grounds to reach where she sleeps. This scene is a little tedious compared to the more intricately-choreographed sequences, and did little to show off the dancer’s skill.

Following this, however, the wedding scene, in which Caradoc attempts to marry the awakened princess, is really entertaining and thoroughly different to the style of the first act. Lit by neon strips, with a fleet of dancers clothed in red velvet and black lace corsets, Bourne creates a hell-ish ceremony to illustrate Caradoc’s intentions with the virgin princess. After feeling uncertain about the need to bring the story into the present day, this scene convinced me that Bourne’s decision was clever and original, as the latter part of the second act showed an entirely different side to the story as well as the dancers themselves, who thrived at mastering both classical and modern styles.

Caradoc and Count Lilac again took the lead, their good-versus-evil dance styles working to show off some incredible dance talent. The dancers who played these characters were made up to look very alike, which heightened the intensity of their contrasting performances, lending a gothic and uncanny atmosphere to every scene they shared.

With a wonderful cast, amazing design work and top notch choreography, the performance only lacked one thing: a live orchestra. Bourne explained this after the show as being a sad misfortune due to a lack of funds, and stated that a full orchestra would be something he hopes to achieve in the future. Tchaikovsky’s score is an incredible and iconic piece of music and would certainly benefit the company if it were possible to have it performed live.

Having now seen 2 Matthew Bourne productions, I am thoroughly excited at the news that New Adventures returns to Liverpool next year once again with Swan Lake, and also a new production which will grant an amazing opportunity to young, local dancers…Lord of the Flies. Matthew Bourne has certainly made his mark on the world of theatre, and with the prospect of such a project next year, will undoubtedly make his mark on the Liverpool art scene too.

The Place Beyond the Pines *****

As if things weren’t tough enough being an awkward teenager, unintentionally befriending the son of your biological father’s killer makes life a little difficult…(Spoliers)

Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines is an incredible tour de force, taking place over 3 acts which follow the lives of two generations of a pair of New York families, entwined in a bitter and corrupt police cover-up.

Ryan Gosling is Luke Granton, a professional stunt biker for a travelling circus who lives a dangerous hand-to-mouth existence before discovering a son he fathered over a year ago, which prompts him to settle in sleepy Schenectady, New York. Gosling finds himself an auto-repair job in a garage with Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), a social outsider with a collection of ticks and awkward mannerisms making him a questionable employer to say the least. Mendelsohn is fantastic in the role, stealing every scene from Gosling, who coincidentally is on top form in this role, delivering contrasting traits of vulnerability and manic rage.

After discovering that the mother of his child, the beautiful Eva Mendes, has moved on and settled down with a new man (Mahershala Ali), Granton seeks a way to make a fast buck in order to win back his family and the ‘perfect’ life he now bitterly watches play out in Mendes’ home. Mendes is perfect in her role as Jason’s mother; Cianfrance somehow avoids the obvious and ignores her capacity for romantic-lead-role, instead concentrating on her talent in conveying the distress of a broken woman torn between love and security.

Robbing banks (Granton’s solution) is a short-lived fantasy for Granton, and leads directly into the second act of the film, after some excellent action scenes in which we see a vulnerability to Gosling’s hard-as-nails biker. Acts 2 and 3 recall the aftermath of Granton’s fate, as cop Bradley cooper struggles to come to terms with his guilt. After being honoured as a hero for taking a bullet, Cooper’s character Avery Cross finds himself victim to a gang of corrupt policemen, who enjoy terrorising Mendes and her family in order to embezzle money. Ray Liotta is ever reliable as the bad guy here, with a haunting on-screen presence which makes the other actors visibly uncomfortable. It is chilling to discover how far up the chain of corruption leads, and viewers are left questioning the validity of Cross’ quest in a world where every lawman has been bought out.

After wrestling with himself for killing the father of a one year old boy, Cross finds it impossible to look at his own son, creating a ghostly parallel of Granton’s story with his own son, and estrangement from the child’s mother. Emory Cohen plays Cooper’s brute of a son, AJ Cross, whose thick Detroit accent and beefy stature mark him out as the school bully after he leaves his mother’s home (Rose Byrne). Despite his thuggish exterior and frankly annoying dialect, we are forced to sympathise with AJ, who never won the acknowledgement of his father.

Granton’s son Jason (Dane DeHaan) is a victim of circumstance, as things become complicated between him and AJ once he finds out the truth about his real father. Despite having the love of a step dad, who clearly loves him as his own, Jason struggles with his identity and the idea of justice, Both young actors give excellent performances, and DeHaan’s portrayal of a troubled teen is particularly memorable, avoiding cliché in favour of raw emotion and a credible account of a lost boy in a man’s body.

The second two acts of the film, for me, were totally unexpected and really brought a whole new element to the story. Based on friends’ reviews I had expected a gratuitous action flick reliant upon the star status of the two leads, however, The Place Beyond The Pines is a truly masterful piece of film-making.

From the cast (who are mostly a collection of Hollywood heartthrobs usually associated with rom-coms) to the score (undulating drones, unnerving the viewer) to the clever motif of the forest, this film delivers high above expectations on all counts, and has got to be the best film of the year so far. Daring to be different, and upsetting the conventions of narrative, The Place Beyond the Pines poses many questions about the rules by which we live, and tells a brutal story through beautiful means.

Greendays Cafe, Lark Lane, Liverpool ****

After a busy morning exploring the city’s haberdasheries and antique shops, my friend and I decided it was time to feast.

Greendays Cafe on Lark Lane is an old favourite, and like most eateries on The Lane, provides fresh, tasty food at a very reasonable price. The Café resides above the local newsagents, with a stairwell adorned with images of Casablanca and Zelda Fitszgerald. Set out over two levels, the café has an incredibly relaxed vibe: shelves are cluttered with antique knicknacks, potted plants and vintage cookbooks. Throughout our stay we listened to laid back 1930′s jazz, and enjoyed exploring our surroundings with hungry eyes.

To start we shared a portion of hummus with pita breads, which was lovely and tasted freshly home-made. The dish came with a dash of paprika and a squeeze of lemon juice which really brought out the flavour of the chickpeas.

Next (after a long time deciding from the huge menu on offer) I chose the halloumi salad, which was delicious and really filling. A huge portion of fried halloumi cheese was accompanied by crisp lettuce, red onion, slices of apple, strawberries, juicy tomatoes and cucumber. This was complimented by the café’s very own home-made bread, which is soft and nutty in flavour, with lashings of what the menu describes as ‘real butter’. The whole meal was really wholesome and refreshing, and the fruit and vegetables were so juicy and sweet we couldn’t believe the price.

My friend had the garlic and chilli spaghetti, which the chef graciously adapted to her tastes, and this arrived in an overflowing dish topped with a bountiful helping of parmesan cheese. The meal came with a small side salad and fresh bread and butter, and was enjoyed down to the last crumb.

Speedy service is not to be expected in such a small, bohemian eatery, as the staff do everything with love and care rather than zealous efficiency. While we waited for our food we eyed up the cakes on offer – towering mountains of frosted goodness, including a very tempting home-baked New York cheesecake – but after our generous portions of lunch, we sadly had no room left.

The bill, including drinks came to a very reasonable £15, considering that everything was freshly made on site, and the portions were so generous. I would recommend the Greendays Cafe for a hearty breakfast/brunch (choose from continental, vegetarian and vegan options from £3.50) or a late lunch, which will easily tide you over until supper time! The menu is huge, ranging from tapas-like nibbles to sandwiches, pasta and jacket potatoes, offering a huge selection of vegetarian, vegan and pescetarian dishes to assault the tastebuds (not the pockets).

Away We Go ****

‘The three S’s are: no separation, no sugar, no strollers’. This is just one of the madcap couples that Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Burt (John Krasinski) encounter on their quest to find the perfect American city to raise their child.

After a disappointing dinner with Burt’s parents in which they discover that they are moving to Europe just a month before the baby is due, the couple realise that they have nothing tying them to the sleepy town in which they live, and seek to find somewhere full of friends and support in which to start their family. Burt’s parents are played by Jeff Daniels, (The Squid and the Whale) and Catherine O’Hara, and both deliver brilliant comic cameo performances, including a particularly inappropriate moment, asking ‘how black will the baby be?’

Highlights of their journey include their encounter with the Herrins; played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton, the pair are a hippy couple in the extreme sense of the word, with very unconventional views about parenting. Gyllenhaal is sensual as well as being excellently funny in her role, and challenges Allison Jenney as the most memorable female cameo in the movie: Jenney is superb as the brash, loud Lily, Verona’s old boss, who speaks awfully about her children in front of them as if they were animals and couldn’t hear.

The film explores the trials and tribulations of having too many options and facing the inability to choose. Burt and Verona discuss the pros and cons of parenting, exploring extremes such as morality, worries and pressures of real family life. Although they constantly compare themselves to those around them, director Sam Mendes demonstrates that no couple can ever be fully ready, as every child is unique and every family different.

Love is the answer, not marriage is the unconventional conclusion of the film, as Mendes tells a story which proves that there is no perfect way to raise a family.