Independents Liverpool Biennial 2012
September 2012

Nearly one hundred artists from Merseyside and around the world, as well as creative groups and city venues will be taking part in the 2012 Independents Biennial.

A vibrant mix of dozens of gallery exhibitions, open studios and site-specific works across all media of the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, photography and performance will be taking place as part of an exciting fringe programme running in parallel with the Liverpool Biennial (September 15 – November 25).

A non-curated, open-access event, the Independents showcases young and emerging new talent alongside established international artists, in a mixture of retrospective and new works devised especially for the festival.

Although the Independents exists to ensure regional artists have a chance to be seen while the wider Biennial goes on around Liverpool, for the first time in 2012 the call went out to international artists, as a result of Independents board member Jacqui Chapman forging relationships while exhibiting at this year’s Florence Biennale.

Since then, artists from Australia, France, Italy, Cuba, Sweden, The Netherlands and Ecuador are among those who have registered, alongside many well-known Liverpool names. Those artists unable to physically be in the city to exhibit their work are now able to do so via the ‘virtual galleries’ on the Independents Biennial website.

Highlights of the Independents Biennial 2012 programme include:

• ARK: The Temple is Full of Water, an eco-acoustic sound installation by James Brady at St Luke’s Church
• Echoes 2012 by artists collective Surface, 14 artists who will be exhibiting in the indoor reservoir on High Park Street in Toxteth
• A series of specially-commissioned short films about the Independents Biennial to be shown on the BBC Big Screen in Clayton Square, Liverpool city centre
• Duggie Fields: Welcome to My World, a career-spanning exhibition of the London-based international pop-artist seen for the first time in the North West as part of the Homotopia programme at The Gallery, Stanhope Street
• Chinese artist Zhao Zhu, who will be commissioning portraits by arrangement at the View Two gallery, Mathew Street
• Live performance from cognitiveSTEREO, which will see one artist covered in bubble wrap and LED lights and rolled around the performance space (venue TBC)
• Work from female wrestler turned artist Barbara Ann Swann, who featured on BBC2’s Show Me the Monet
• SCIBase, a collaborative project involving artists associated with SCI, based in Merseyside, and the BasementArtsProject in Leeds, whose work has been seen at this year’s Stockholm International Arts Market
• Inventions & Reinventions (Part 1), an exhibition of the work of John Moores 24 Painting Prize winner Martin Greenland at the Corke Gallery
• Registered artists including established Liverpool-based international talent such as Derek Culley, Terry Duffy, Theresia Cadwallader, Simon Yorke, Ed Bruce, Jacqui Chapman, Alice Lenkiewicz, and mixed media sculptor and Huffington Post contributor Michelle Howarth Rashman.
• Exhibitions at official registered venues including the Bluecoat Display Centre, Madelainartz, Arena Studios, the Bridewell Studios and Gallery, and Hope University’s Cornerstone and Capstone Gallery among others

Independents Biennial board member and exhibiting artist Wendy Williams said: “We have been delighted that such a broad range of artists, groups and venues have come forward to be part of the Independents.

“With exhibitions throughout the city, we’re pleased that the Independents will offer a rich and diverse fringe event, ensuring all artists have the opportunity to showcase their work and benefit from the Liverpool Biennial.”

For more information on the artists and exhibitions of the Independents Biennial, visit www.independentsbiennial.org