Press Release
Date of issue: 2 October 2017
FIRST DETAILS OF PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED FOR 10TH LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL IN 2018
Liverpool Biennial, the UK biennial of contemporary art, today announced the first list of artists selected for its 10th edition in 2018, titled Beautiful world, where are you?. The dates of the Biennial are 14 July – 28 October 2018. (Professional Preview Days: 12 and 13 July 2018).
Artists announced today are:
Madiha Aijaz (Pakistan)
Abbas Akhavan (Iranian, lives in Canada)
Francis Alÿs (Belgian, lives in Mexico)
Ei Arakawa (Japanese, lives in USA)
Kevin Beasley (USA)
Mohamed Bourouissa (Algerian, lives in France)
Banu Cennetoğlu(Turkey)
Roberto Cuoghi (Italy)
Shannon Ebner (USA)
Paul Elliman (UK)
Inci Eviner (Turkey)
Aslan Gaisumov (Chechnya)
Ryan Gander (UK)
Joseph Grigely (USA)
Holly Hendry (UK)
Lamia Joreige(Lebanon)
Brian Jungen (Canada)
Janice Kerbel(Canadian, lives in UK)
Duane Linklater (Canada)
Mae-ling Lokko (Saudi Arabian, lives in Ghana and USA)
Taus Makhacheva (Russia)
Ari Benjamin Meyers (American, lives in Germany)
Naeem Mohaiemen (Bangladeshi, lives in USA)
Paulina Olowska (Poland)
George Osodi (Nigeria)
Silke Otto-Knapp (German, lives in USA)
Mathias Poledna (Austrian, lives in USA)
Annie Pootoogook† (Canada)
Reetu Sattar (Bangladesh)
Suki Seokyeong Kang (South Korea)
Iacopo Seri (Italy)
The Serving Library (American, lives in UK and USA)
Agnès Varda (Belgian, lives in France)
Joyce Wieland† (Canada)
Haegue Yang (South Korean, lives in South Korea and Germany)
Rehana Zaman (UK)
The Biennial programme is presented in locations across the city including public spaces and the city’s leading art venues: Bluecoat, FACT, Open Eye Gallery, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University’s Exhibition Research Lab, National Museums Liverpool,RIBA North, the Liverpool Playhouse, Victoria Gallery & Museum (University of Liverpool), and Blackburne House.
Commissioning partners include Chisenhale Gallery, Dhaka Art Summit, Hospitalfield, Karachi Biennale, The Liverpool BID Company,ROSL Arts, The Tetley, and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Liverpool Biennial 2018 iscurated by Kitty Scott (Carol and Morton Rapp Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Ontario) and Sally Tallant (Director, Liverpool Biennial) with the Liverpool Biennial team: Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey (Head of Production and International Projects), Sinéad McCarthy (Curator), Polly Brannan (Education Curator), and Joasia Krysa (Head of Research).
Also on show during Liverpool Biennial 2018 are partner exhibitions John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery and Bloomberg New Contemporaries at Liverpool John Moores University’sLiverpool School of Art & Design. The Biennial Fringe programme will be published in 2018.
Sally Tallant, Director of Liverpool Biennial and Co-Curator, said: “The 10thedition of the Biennial is an important moment for all of us, marking 20 years in the city, and inviting artists and audiences to reflect on a world of social, political and economic turmoil. We are proud to be part of the City’s programme for the 10th anniversary of Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008, alongside Tate Liverpool, itself celebrating its 30th anniversary.”
Media Enquiries:
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Notes to Editors:
About Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is the UK biennial of contemporary art and commissions artists to make and present work in the context of Liverpool. It takes place every two years across the city in public spaces, galleries, museums and online. The Biennial is underpinned by a programme of research, education, residencies and commissions. Founded in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 300 new artworks and presented work by over 450 artists from around the world.
Amongst artists selected in early editions are Doug Aitken, John Akomfrah, Dan Graham, Mona Hatoum, Nicholas Hlobo, Yayoi Kusama, Annette Messager, Takashi Murakami, Yoko Ono, Philippe Parreno, and Franz West.
About the 10th edition of Liverpool Biennial
The artistic concept and title for the 10thedition,Beautiful world, where are you?, derives from a 1788 poem by German poet Friedrich Schiller, later set to music by Austrian composer Franz Schubert in 1819. The years between the composition of Schiller’s poem and Schubert’s song saw great upheaval and profound change in Europe, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Napoleonic Empire. Today the poem continues to suggest a world gripped by deep uncertainty; a world of social, political and environmental turmoil. It can be seen as a lament but also as an invitation to reconsider our past, advancing a new sense of beauty that might be shared in a more equitable way.
Artists’ biographies
Madiha Aijaz (Pakistan)
Madiha Aijaz (Karachi, Pakistan) lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan. Working with photographs, film, and fiction, Aijaz’s practice is concerned with how pleasure and entertainment are experienced in public spaces. She photographs the railways, devotional towns and public libraries, reading spaces which are fraught with civic failures but continue to remain functional. Her book on Hindu temples, Call to Conscience was published in 2014. Aijaz is an Assistant Professor at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and holds an MFA in Photography from Parsons with a Fulbright Scholarship.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include the Karachi Biennial, Pakistan (2017); 10th International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala,Thiruvananthapuram, India (2017); IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, New Delhi, India (2015); and Urban Flux Film Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa (2012).
Madiha Aijaz is co-commissioned with Karachi Biennale and The Tetley, as part of the New North and South, in collaboration with Hospitalfield and ROSL Arts.
Abbas Akhavan (Iran/Canada)
Abbas Akhavan (b. 1977, Tehran, Iran) lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture, and performance. His research has been deeply influenced by the sites where he works: the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them, and the people that frequent them. Recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces and species just outside the home – the garden, the backyard and other domesticated landscapes.
Akhavan is the recipient of Kunstpreis Berlin (2012), The Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014), the Sobey Art Award (2015) and the Fellbach Triennial Award (2016). Recent exhibitions include Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2017); Salt, Istanbul, Turkey (2017); David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK (2017); Sharjah Biennial 13, UAE (2017); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2016); and Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2012).
Francis Alÿs (Belgium/Mexico)
Francis Alÿs (b. 1959, Antwerp, Belgium) lives and works in Mexico City. Alÿs originally trained as an architect, but it was the confrontation with issues of urbanisation and social unrest in his new country of adoption that inspired his decision to become a visual artist. He consistently directs his distinct poetic and imaginative sensibility toward anthropological and geopolitical concerns centred around observations of, and engagements with, everyday life, which the artist has described as "a sort of discursive argument composed of episodes, metaphors, or parables". His multifaceted projects include public actions, installations, video, paintings and drawings.
Recent exhibitions include Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada (2017); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2015); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina Napoli, Italy (2014); dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel, Germany (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2013); Tate Modern, London, UK (2010-11); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2010); and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, USA (2008).
Ei Arakawa (Japan/USA)
Ei Arakawa (b. 1977, Fukushima, Japan) currently lives in New York. Arakawa works in performance, sculpture and installation. His performance works are typically collaborative and subvert performative conventions by breaking the boundaries between audience and performer, resulting in spontaneous live actions. He often incorporates other artists’ works as source material and his works explore ideas of authorship, subjectivity, geography and collaboration.
Recentexhibitionsinclude Skulptur Projecte Münster, Germany (2017); Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2016); 9th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2016); Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany (2015); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2014); Whitney Biennial, New York, USA (2014); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, USA (2013); Pavilion of Georgia at the 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy (2013); Tate Modern, London (2012); 30th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2012); and MoMA, New York, USA (2012).
Kevin Beasley (USA)
Kevin Beasley (b. 1985, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA) lives and works in New York. Beasley’s practice traverses sculpture, photography, sound and performance. Through the material transformation of a synthesis of objects, ranging from clothing to studio happenings, Beasley reimagines both personal and wider cultural realities, eliciting new meaning within our shared histories.
Recent exhibitions include Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York, USA (2017); Hammer Projects, Los Angeles, USA (2017); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA (2016-17); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2016); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2015); MoMA PS1, Long Island City, USA (2015); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada (2015); Whitney Biennial, New York, USA (2014); and Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea (2014).
Mohamed Bourouissa (Algeria/France)
Mohamed Bourouissa (b. 1978, Blida, Algeria) lives in Paris, France. Bourouissa’s images, installations and videos explore power relations, displays of masculinity and societal tensions by referencing art historical imagery. Périphérique (2005-2009), for instance, presents a myriad of seemingly violent tensions at play in urban environments in staged cinematic guises. In his series Horseday (2013), by designing, staging and documenting an equestrian event, Bourouissa focuses on a North Philadelphia community’s efforts at neighbourhood revitalisation. With a strong collaborative sensibility, Bourouissa embeds himself within the community, examining how society is structured and how social processes are activated.
Recent exhibitions include Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, USA (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2016); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada (2014); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2014); and MAXXI, Rome, Italy (2012).
Banu Cennetoğlu (Turkey)
Banu Cennetoğlu (b.1970, Ankara, Turkey) lives and works in Istanbul. Cennetoğlu explores the political, social and cultural dimension of the production, representation and distribution of knowledge and asks how it feeds into a society’s collective thought and becomes part of its ideology. In 2006 she initiated BAS, a project space in Istanbul focusing on collection and production of artists’ books and printed matter. In 2016 she was a guest at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.
Recent exhibitions include REDCAT, Los Angeles, USA (2017); documenta 14, Athens, Greece & Kassel, Germany (2017); Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, Italy (2017); 10th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2014); Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain (2010); 53rd Venice Biennale, Italy (2009); 3rd Berlin Biennale, Germany (2008); 1st Athens Biennale, Greece (2007); and 10th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2007).
Banu Cennetoğlu’s project is co-commissioned with Chisenhale Gallery, London.
Roberto Cuoghi (Italy)
Roberto Cuoghi (b.1973, Modena, Italy) lives and works in Milan, Italy. Material transformation and hybridity are themes running through Cuoghi’s practice. His diverse output ranges from drawings, paintings, sculptures and sound installations. In an early work from 1998, Cuoghi, then aged only 24, completely adopted a middle-aged persona by growing a beard, gaining weight, dying his hair grey and adopting middle-aged mannerisms. More recently in TheImitation of Christ (2017), Christ-like figures cast in unstable materials degrade, offering many different versions of Christ.
Recent exhibitions include the 57th and 55th Venice Biennale, Italy (2017 and 2013); Aspen Art Museum, USA (2015); New Museum, New York, USA (2014);Hammer Museum,Los Angeles, USA (2011);ICA, London, UK (2008); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2007); and 4th Berlin Biennial, Germany (2006).
Shannon Ebner (USA)
Shannon Ebner (b.1971, Englewood, New Jersey, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles, USA. Informed by various modes of reading, writing and poetics, Ebner’s work derives from a combination of sources including poetry, experimental writing and found language. Building letters and phrases from vernacular materials such as cardboard, concrete blocks, electronic message boards and found typography, her work highlights how language communicates as a material form. Ebner works in photography, sculpture, video and artist publications. Her projects are often realised through installation.
Exhibitions include V-A-C Foundation, Venice, Italy (2017); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA (2016); Künstlerhaus Graz, Austria (2016); ICA, Miami, USA (2015); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2014); Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia (2012); and MoMA, New York, USA (2012).
Paul Elliman (UK)
Paul Elliman (b. 1961, London, UK) lives and works in London. His work follows language through many of its social and technological guises, in which typography, human voice and bodily gestures emerge as part of a direct correspondence with other visible forms and sounds of the city. Elliman is a visiting tutor for the MFA Voice Studies programme at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.
He has exhibited widely in venues such as the ICA, London, UK (2014); New Museum, New York, USA (2008); Tate Modern, London, UK (2001); and MoMA, New York, USA (2012) with recent solo exhibitions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2017); and La Salle de Bains, Lyon, France (2017).
Inci Eviner (Turkey)
Inci Eviner (b. 1956, Turkey) lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. Ranging from drawings and video to performative and collaborative practices, Eviner’s large body of work comprises multi-layered pieces that originate from drawings. Her work explores the politics of desire, space, subjectivity, and their potentiality. As an artist mindful of the traumas that we experience in our everyday lives, she demands new approaches to seeing and listening. Eviner was awarded the 13th Sharjah Biennial Art Prize in 2017.
She has been invited to participate in numerous biennials including Istanbul, Venice, Taiwan, Thessaloniki, Shanghai, Busan, Aichi and Sharjah. Museum exhibitions include The Drawing Center, New York, USA (2015); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, USA (2012); Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA (2011); Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria (2010); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, France (2011); and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France (2009).
Aslan Gaisumov (Chechnya)
Aslan Gaisumov (b. 1991, Grozny, Chechnya)lives and works in Grozny.Gaisumov is developing an oeuvre that feeds on, but also transforms and transcends, personal and collective memory. His works are poised between visual immediacy and social commentary, between the momentary and the monumental. They are mostly videos and installations incorporating found and purposely crafted objects, but sometimes also photographs and works on paper.
Recent exhibitions includeStedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,Netherlands(2017); Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, USA (2017);Museum of Modern Art,Antwerp, Belgium(2016);Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany(2016); Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium (2015); Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2014); and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2014).In 2014 he was awarded the Special Prize of the Future Generation Art Prize of the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev, Ukraine, and in 2016 the Innovation Prize of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Moscow.
Ryan Gander (UK)
Ryan Gander (b. 1976, Chester, UK) is an artist living and working in London and Suffolk. Through associative thought processes that connect the everyday and the esoteric, his artworks materialise in many different forms: from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance, and more.Gander’s work involves a questioning of language and knowledge, a reinvention of the modes of appearance and creation of an artwork.
He has exhibited internationally for over a decade including at the National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan (2017); Musee d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canada (2016); Manchester Art Gallery, UK (2014); Tate Britain, London, UK (2013); Tate Liverpool, UK (2013); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); and Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York, USA (2010).
Joseph Grigely (USA)
Joseph Grigely (b. 1956, Longmeadow, Massachusetts, USA) lives and works in Chicago. Grigely is an artist and critical theorist who works across different media including sculpture, text, video, and installation. He is Professor of Visual & Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He has had solo exhibitions at Whitney Biennial, New York, USA (2014); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2009); MCA, Chicago, USA (2008); 50th Venice Biennale, Italy (2003); 2nd Berlin Biennial, Germany (2001); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA (2001); Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, France (2000); Biennale of Sydney, Australia (1999); and Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (1997). His books include Oceans of Love: The Uncontainable Gregory Battcock (2016); Exhibition Prosthetics (2010); Blueberry Surprise (2006); Conversation Pieces (1998); and Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism (1995);as well as essays on disability theory and body criticism.
Holly Hendry (UK)
Holly Hendry (b. 1990, London, UK) lives in London. Hendry is interested in defining the architecture of spaces by exploring the possibilities, such as surface, colour and density, inherent in a wide range of materials through her installations. The shifting scales and unusual positioning of her often monumental works encourage visitors to consider sculpture in dialogue with their surroundings, whilst highlighting the precarious balance between positive and negative spaces.
Recent exhibitions include The Box, Pippy Houldsworth, London, UK (2017); Arratia Beer, Berlin, Germany (2017); Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Copenhagen, Denmark (2017); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK (2017); VITRINE, London, UK (2016); S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK (2014); and Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE (2014).
Lamia Joreige (Lebanon)
Lamia Joreige (b. 1972, Beirut, Lebanon) lives and works in Beirut. Joreigeis a visual artist and filmmaker using archival material and elements of fiction to illustrate the relationship between individual stories and collective history. She is interested in modes of presentation and representation, particularly in relation to the Lebanese wars and their aftermath, and Beirut is commonly at the fore of her imagery. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for advanced studies at Harvard University (2016-2017) and shortlisted for Artes Mundi 7 (2017). She is a co-founder and board member of Beirut Art Center, which she co-directed from 2009 to 2014.