Presented as a ‘boutique’ art fair, ‘The Economy of the Gift’ is the first of a new annual event deigned to attract increased attention to Liverpool’s growing art scene. Being based in what would be considered a peripheral location, the non-profit A Foundation is keen to engage with other regional art scenes, to seek new ways of succeeding beyond art’s epicenters.
The exhibition began with A Foundation selecting four galleries from northern England -
Bureau (Manchester), Ceri Hand Gallery (Liverpool),
The International 3 (Manchester) and
Workplace Gallery (Gateshead). Each of the galleries was then asked to choose an international partner to join them, seeing galleries from Bucharest, San Francisco, Stockholm, and Zurich added to the show. The ‘art fair’ format then came into play with the eight galleries each choosing one of their own artists to exhibit, with all works made available for sale.
Walking around A Foundation’s large Blade Factory gallery you might not realise that such a complicated process lies behind the exhibition’s conception. Unless you are a budding collector, for the casual viewer this is really a group show of seven individual artists - Eric Bainbridge, Geta Bratescu, Elodie Pong, Jacob Dahlgren, Mark Harasimowicz, Rebecca Lennon and Shaun O’ Dell - and one artist collective – Brass Art. Frustratingly, the names of artists and art works are not displayed in the gallery, leaving you to decipher authorship for your self. What matters most, though, is the content, and there are some interesting works to see.
The post-industrial Blade Factory provides the artists with ample room in which to exhibit their practice. Amongst the best works are three videos by Switzerland-based American artist Elodie Pong. Projected in a sequence of darkened rooms, an avalanche crashes across a mountainside, taxidermied birds discuss the financial crisis on a windswept cliff, and in the brilliant ‘After the Empire’ (2008) things get up close and personal with America’s cultural heroes. In a normal group show, or ‘big’ art fair, you wouldn’t get to see video work displayed this well, making ‘Economy, one of the best opportunities a UK audience will get to appreciate Pong’s approach.
After encountering a cocaine snorting Pinocchio and the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, you can also catch the first UK presentation of work by iconic Romanian artist Geta Bratescu. Bratescu (b. 1926) is seen as one of Romania’s leading 20thCentury artists, though her work remains underrepresented in the West. Exhibited at A Foundation are series of collages, ‘The Rule of the Circle, The Rule of the Game’, made in the early 1980s. Twenty years after the fall of communism, there is a growing trend to re-engage with artists whose careers were stifled by Europe’s authoritarian regimes. Bratsecu will likely be at the head of this process as the art world expands its appreciation of East European art.
By engaging with an artist such as Bratescu, A Foundation has brought some of the external dialogue about the ‘periphery’ into the exhibition’s content. By and large, though, the more interesting concepts relating to ‘Economy’ are on the edges of the exhibition, relating to the ways in which the art market operates, how regional players can survive in a world centered on places like London, Paris and New York, and whether public money should be used to support commercial galleries. The exhibition itself is more simply an opportunity to see a diverse group of artists that would not normally be brought together.
‘The Economy of the Gift’ is showing at A Foundation, Liverpool. Until 22nd May
by Richard Unwin
More Art & Culture.....
.jpg)
