Going out but always coming home again: Liverpool Biennial 2016
By Andrew Stooke
Having opened in July, the Liverpool Biennial (7/9–10/16) has been marked the "post-Brexit festival." Like the rhetoric of the exit faction, it is also seen as advocating the UK’s alliances to unspecified trading opportunities outside Europe, looking beyond to a muddled internationalism. A multifaceted spirit is being played out in the event’s six overlapping themes—“Ancient Greece,” “Chinatown,” “Children’s Episode,” “Monuments from the Future,” “Software” and “Flashback.” In other words, they are concepts that are broad enough to accommodate any idea or thought. This might sound like a willful structure, but given the nature of the large-scale cultural event, the long treks across town to its various venues has led the art-viewing experience to mingle with the historic elements of Liverpool.
The display of 44 art projects at 22 different sites has allowed the city to throw open some new and magical venues, such as a derelict art deco cinema only a stone’s throw from the city's main railway station, a battered and abandoned former brewery, and a neoclassical oratory; but none could be described as the primary exhibition space. Marvin Gaye Chetwynd’s musical film, Dogsy Ma Bone (2016), performed by students from local schools at Cains Brewery, encompasses at least three Biennial themes—a children’s episode, a flashback, and a future monument—with its final scene even taking place on the steps of a neoclassical bank. Brechtian in vision, Dogsy Ma Bone exposes the mechanisms of production and sociopolitical themes of capitalist greed, with a delivery by nonprofessional actors. In fact, Chetwynd brings out pure performances from the cast that balance real-life grit with innocent folly.
