The Gallery Liverpool, 41 Stanhope St, L8 5RE
9th – 25th September 2016

Reviewed by JJ Schaer

I accidentally managed to gatecrash Jarvis Cocker’s current exhibition, which is being housed at The Gallery in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle. I was going down to the gallery with a friend just to see if it was actually open – I’d made a couple of trips down there to see their previous exhibition ‘Wild Mutation’ – but found the place repeatedly closed during opening hours.

Walking in to find an exhibition by Cocker perked my interest, but that was immediately quashed when we turned around to see Jarvis Cocker stood in the middle of the room chatting to some of the organisers.

It quickly became apparent that the gallery was being prepared for the opening night and we shouldn’t have been there. But as no one had asked us to leave we decided to quietly have a look around at the pieces on show and get quick glimpses of Cocker from the corner of our eyes.

He was stood in the centre of the gallery looking down on several televisions that were playing some looped footage silently, being assured by the staff that if the videos were to glitch safety measures were in place. He was a looming presence. Although slightly greying he still looked like the image that adorned so many walls during my student days, still dressed in a shabby suit that looked like it had been plucked from a thrift shop.

The exhibition itself was comprised of a number of pieces. The centrepiece being a number of gold records, each with a label designed by Cocker and bearing amusing punk inspired titles. Along with a couple of exhibits that were reminiscent of his Pulp days and the video installation that was under preparation. But it was hard to take it in properly between the fact that we were trespassing and a small amount of celebrity induced delirium.

Eventually someone with a ladder asked why we were there and then implied we should leave.