NOISE festival showcases some the UK's best young creative talents. © Noise Festival
A noisy quartet of emerging young artists is set to invade this year’s Liverpool Biennial with the intention of making as much noise as possible to publicise their art exhibition.
Part of the Independents strand of the Biennial, the exhibition NOISE Festival is curated by artist Stella Vine and features a selection of 40 emerging British artists who have been featured on the government/Arts Council funded web project www.noisefestival.com.
To kickstart the show Vine set a group of four artists a challenge to find a venue and promote the exhibition in just a month with a budget of only £500.
The team, consisting of Judy Louise Jacobs (23), Chris Boyd (21), Kevin Hunt (23) and Chris Rice (21), met for the first time on August 14 and have already secured the venue. The show is set to open on September 14 at View Two Gallery in Matthew Street. Now all that remains is the promotion – and a lot of noise.
© Judy Louise Jacobs
“We’ve got no real funding at all,” explained group organiser cum manager Chris Rice, “but all these Biennial events are happening all over the city so we’re going to be turning up outside galleries and openings and making as much noise as possible. We want to cause as much havoc as we can – obviously within legalities.”
“We are currently getting our street team together.” he went on. “We’re recruiting buskers who will be wearing our NOISE t-shirts and we’ve got hold of a car which has got our logos on it. This is going to be making the rounds and making a racket during the Biennial.”
The four managed to persuade the Korova Bar on Wood Street to allow itself to become their base of operations. “It’s where all the arty students in Liverpool go so it’s a perfect base for us,” said Chris. “We’re going to make it a promotional base - we’re taking that to be our party centre.”
With some of the biggest names in art already booked for the month long art-fest, which has established itself as the UK’s biggest visual arts festival, the group are going to have their work cut out, but Chris, whose background is in music promotion, is undaunted.
Poppies © Chris Boyd
“The Biennial has got some big names coming and the A Foundation (the organisation that supports the Arts in Liverpool and who started the Biennial in 1999) are even having a 24 hour champagne party. We’ve got a budget of £500 so we can barely afford five bottles of champagne let alone 24 hours' worth!”
“What we’re doing is coming up with a pop version of art promotion - we want to get a street presence and then get as many people involved as we can. We’re basically involved in a guerrilla art project.”
NOISE was set up to bring together artists under the age of 26 across a range of disciplines including fashion, art, film, music, design, architecture, and written word. The project is supported by a range of media partners including BBC (who are making a documentary about the Liverpool Noise Festival project), MTV and Channel 4.
Work by some of the UK’s most adventurous young talents has been exhibited on the site, and the exhibition in Liverpool provides a physical showcase for some of the best fine art activity during 2006.
© Kevin Hunt
This year’s Biennial includes paintings selected by Tracey Emin, pavements of shattered glass from Mexico City, work by the cream of Britain’s art school graduates, a football pitch designed as an obstacle course and Panamanian Bus Painters. Add to this a small but determined band of young guerrilla artists and it could prove to be one of the liveliest biennial’s yet.
The NOISE Festival art exhibition will be held at two the Korova Bar and View Two Gallery between September 14 and October 21. For further information visit www.noisefestival.com or see www.myspace.com/noise_liverpoolbiennial For more information on the independent strand of the Liverpool Biennial see www.independentsbiennial.co.uk
