A spot of Art Appreciation in Liverpool

An arty visit to Liverpool this update.  Our friend Beth works for a major gallery there, so we thought we'd pop over, see her, see her place of work, and then the gallery where her Mr. works too for good measure.

First stop, parking at the Albert Dock which was bathed in lovely sunshine, making a pleasant first in about ten visits to the city for us.

A stroll up through the centre bought us round the front of Lime Street and some of the impressive buildings in the top end of the town centre such as that above, and eventually to the Walker (just visible in the background) where we looked at some impressive exhibitions, the Youngest Child proved to have an unnatural ability to navigate around galleries based entirely to the proximity of a giant inflatable cat (by Mark Leckey), and we quite forgot to take any pictures.

Moving on to the Bluecoat, apparently the oldest Arts Centre in England.  It is a nice gallery, with a good mix of work, and a rather nice clash of architectural styles; Liverpool's oldest surviving building on the outside...

...and concrete brutalism like something out of "High Rise" on the inside.

This is a very nice space, decorated with the posters of dozens of shows.

After a pleasant lunch in the eatery downstairs, we headed into the show proper, "Public View" a major retrospective of the recent life of the gallery.  The show has works by 100 artists who have previously exhibited there, some big names, some less well known.  It was a varied and very interesting show, all the better for the fact there was such a variety of art on display.

Bens attention was naturally drawn to this, a sculpture piece called "Pushed" by Emma Rushton, made back in 1994.

Ben liked this for the obvious reason that it is a miniature building constructed for an art piece- up close you can see the details, the scraps of real net curtains, the grit used to give it texture and so on. 

Another which appealed, again for the same reasons, was the work "Make Room (miniatures)" by sculptor Val Murray (1986)   

One which drew our eye because of the use of light and black background, and the dramatic shadows, "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" by Claire Weetman (2012/2013)

This rather fun piece, which made us of electromagnets to make the shed hover and spin on the base was upstairs, and fascinating (the Childs suspected magic was afoot).

To our slight irritation we've lost the caption for it though, we'll edit and credit when we find it.

We didn't get chance to snap many other pictures with three youngsters in tow, who wanted to hit the craft activity tables.  Worth saying though how much fun the kids had here, doing the activity and looking at the art.  Very welcoming staff, decent grub, good art in a well curated show and all free to boot.  Similar for the Walker though we didn't try their food, all the above comments apply there too, especially the quality of art on show.

And thus ended our little jaunt out to Liverpool.  It's nice every now and then to get a bit of art appreciation in, and Liverpool is a nice city in which to do it.