Jesse Rae, performing at Romantic Detachment 2005. Photo Peter Dibden © A Foundation
Liverpool’s major new contemporary art venue, Greenland Street, launched by local arts organisation A Foundation, kicks off its new life with a remit to bring a vibrant programme of exhibitions and events for the Liverpool Biennial and beyond.
Occupying the Blade Factory Galleries, this bold new venture hosts, amongst a raft of new shows, a multi-media car crash of art and events brought together under the moniker of Virtual Grizedale.
Conceived by the Cumbrian art organisation Grizedale Arts, this extravaganza takes in everything from mod culture, choirs and erotic dancers to a 14-foot stone xylophone, legendary funk musicians and a working farm.
Bryan Davies and Dan Robinson, Parkamoor – Grizedale Arts 2006. Photograph courtesy Grizedale Arts © A Foundation.
As you enter the Grizedale space you are, however, warned that this is not an exhibition, as Grizedale Arts maintain: “This is the beginning and that is not an end in itself.”
That's right - this Greenland Street show is essentially the acting-out of a website, drawing together the various current Grizedale Arts projects including work in Japan, Egremont and Coniston in Cumbria, China and Liverpool. It is also the launch of a programme of live performance and what Grizedale describe enigmatically as 'other stuff' taking place for the duration of the Biennial.
Performances range from the remarkable musical stones of Skiddaw featuring Jamie Barnes of Keswick to the amazing Jessie Ray, complete with kilt and broadsword.
Brian Dewan and Jamie Barnes performing at the Coniston Water Festival2005. Courtesy Polly Braden © A Foundation
Many of the projects documented in the show highlight how Grizedale is all about the interactivity of art and regeneration. The organisation’s work in the town of Egremont is a case in point.
Here projects are designed to be of real benefit to the people of the town and to extend existing strengths, and promote the approach of culture as a real means of regeneration. The show documents examples of this: we learn that Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane have reinstigated the ‘greasy pole’, a craft fair tradition, dating to the 19th century.
This local oddity, which sees locals attempt to climb a 30 foot, lard-covered pole, was banned last year on health and safety grounds but has been revived by the two as an art project.
From experimental chicken coops... © Richard Moss/24 Hour Museum
Other examples of the way Grizedale Arts work with local communities include Low Parkmoor Farmhouse. The isolated and threatened old building on the fells above Lake Coniston has been taken over as a project space that artists Bryan Davis and Dan Robinson are currently transforming into a ‘thinking space’ for the north.
The building will become a new HQ for Grizedale Arts and act as a hub for the organisations' activity, its residency base and an experimental farm.
Other projects highlighted here include The Seven Samurai, realised as part of a Triennial in Japan, and using seven artists to help the small fishing town of Toge in their struggle against cultural change and a showcase of products from Liverpool allotments.
To erotic dancers... Grizedale Arts takes in the full spectrum of artistic life. © Richard Moss/24 Hour Museum
All of these projects are linked by a desire to use art to make a constructive impact on communities. If art really can make a difference and suggest alternative approaches to regeneration - and revive a sense of civic pride - all power to Grizedale Arts.
For more information abut Grizedale Arts visit their website www.grizedale.org
