Liverpool Biennial 2012: Patrick Murphy, Belonging

A very simple and light-hearted work which responds to the theme of the biennial, Hospitality  If you have ever lived or been to a city then you will know how much the pigeon is hated or looked as a nuisance. They are even given the name flying rats due to the unclean look about them and the diseases they carry. Murphy has turned this animal from a nuisance to a welcoming by making them pure bright colours such as green, blue and yellow. It makes the spectator notice the pigeons and sees them in a different light. They are still in the urban setting and can be seen all along the top of the Walker and a few in the Walker Gallery. So overall the artist as made an animal which is avoided and made them hospitable. You can even buy smaller versions in the gallery shop!

Liverpool Biennial 2012: Wolstenhome Project

Walking into this gallery is like walking into an eerie Alice in wonderland. You enter into a tunnel made from tree branches which were at first fresh and now have aged and died. Hidden within the branches are small television screens which flick between blinking eyes and moving mouths which gives you the feeling of being watched and judged. Once out of the tunnel of trees you arrive in an dirty dim area where you can make out a light behind another set of trees. Before entering this area behind the trees there is the 'Inhospitable Library' which is a bookshelf where you can borrow the books for a week and return them. The books are books which have inspired  the curators of the gallery to create this exhibition space like this, such as 'weathering heights' by Emile Brontë and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell. Moving behind the second set of trees is a table with a chair at the end and above the chair is two lampshades which are lit which reminded me of the mad hatters tea party. We talked to the curator about the lay out and she said that they did a social experiment by sitting 13 people around the table and made them sit next to someone unknown and see what came about from strangers sitting in an eerie atmosphere. The room is also very cold and to go with this spooky atmosphere is music which was made specifically for this exhibition by an outside band. the music to me sounded a little bit like the music you would here before the adverts start playing at the cinema when you arrive very early. I enjoyed this exhibition and think its well worth a visit!

Tate Modern: Unilever Series: Tino Sehgal

The first live commission at the Unilever exhibition which takes place at the turbine hall at the Tate Modern. It is created by Tino Sehgal and have now been to see it twice and still have no idea what's going on and what the point of it is? I had to go on Tate Modern website to try and get an understanding however I still don't understand the point. They say that it is previous choreographed movements which involve sound and conversation with each other and audience but I really in any way relate this to anything and confuses me when i think about it. the two times I have been to see it, I have seen them doing a workout and i have seen them walking backwards signing a Latin hymn, I think?? The Performance has now finished but i really would like to know what the whole performance was about? Ill have to do more research into it!

Barbican art Gallery: Rain Room

After I visited the National gallery I went to the Barbican to go see the Rain Room and is apart of the random international exhibition. I got there at about four in the afternoon and when walking in realised I would not be able to see the rain room that day as the queue was so long. I joined it and a woman who worked at the Barbican walked over and point to a sign about 4 metres in front of me, which read '2 hours to queue from this sign'. It closes at 8 so I would have got in but i decided i would return at Christmas and hopefully it would have died down by then. But what I gathered from standing in the queue is that the rain room allows you to control the room by walking very slowly and the movement control stops the rain where you are!! Hopefully next time I will be writing about this when I have experienced controlling the rain!!

The National Gallery: Richard Hamilton The Late Works

Over reading week I went back home to London and visited a few Museums such as the Barbican, Tate Modern and The National Gallery. The free exhibition at the National Gallery at the moment is on Richard Hamilton, The British Pop artist, and shows his later works. Around two years ago i went to the Whitechapel  Gallery in East London and saw some of Hamilton's work there such as Just what makes todays home so different, 1956. However this exhibition focus's on his later work from the last decade of his life. Hamilton died last year age 89 and this exhibition is showing all the works from the last 10 years. A reason why it is shown at the national gallery and not more of a contemporary gallery is because Hamilton did use the National gallery to help out his art, just like a lot of artist's do and he has also exhibited in this space before for the exhibition 'The Artists Eye'. A lot of the works in the exhibition which is going on at the moment has connections to the gallery such as 'Saensbury Wing', 2000, which is a computer generated art work of the arches in the Sainsbury's wing,  of National Gallery, and you can just make out a painting which should be 'The Incredulity of Saint Thomas' by Conegliano, a renaissance artist. Other works in this exhibition also relate to the gallery and this is possibly why the exhibition has been put on here. The exhibition also looks at how Hamilton made his works and says how he is fascinated by computers and digital printers and he always referred to his works as painting and called the medium 'Epson inkjet on Hewlett-Parkard RHesolution Canvas'. Work covered in his exhibition also relates to Duchamp and Balzac. The exhibition is free and is on till January 13th 2013 and is well worth a visit!