Friday 9 November 2012

Liverpool Biennial 2012 - Doug Aitken and John Akomfrah



Have been looking a lot at Daido Moriyama's photography, much of it of the dark side of Japanese society - here is another Japanese photographer, Kohei Yoshiyuki focusing on late night multi-person sexual encounters in the 1970's in Tokyos' parks.




Two highlights from the show were Doug Aitken's The Source- where he interviews 18 artists/creators about the creative process - each short interview is perfectly edited - his questions are succinct and to the point and the answers are all insightful and quotable.
My favourites included, Tilda Swinton, Jack White, The Lucky Dragons and William Eggleston - and I want to buy one of Doug's sonic tables.








 http://vimeopro.com/theartnewspaper/all/video/47164123

On the way to the next space, I visited the International Slavery Museum. In the same way that The Holocaust pervades Documenta in Kassel, so does the wealth generated by slavery pervade the rich architectural landscape of Liverpool.
The overwhelming feeling was shame - summed up by this 1923 Christmas card from a Nigerian nut farm estate - notice that the English owners do not have anything scrawled on their nice, white clean clothes.



This was an excellent pre-cursor to John Akomfrah's brilliant, 46 minute multi-screen film, The Unfinished Conversation, based on the Jamaican immigrant and BBC journalist, Stuart Hall's film and photo archive - about identity and and memory itself.
The film featured images from Britain of the past 50 years - my own history but not my experience - truly inspiring film making.



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