Liverpool Biennial is the largest festival of contemporary art in the UK, with free exhibitions taking place across the city’s public spaces, galleries, museums and online.
From 20 March – 6 June 2021, the 11th edition of the Biennial, The Stomach and the Port, looks at the body and ways of connecting with the world. The exhibition is free, booking is required. See here for details.
Outdoor Sculpture
To celebrate Liverpool’s iconic architecture and public spaces, a new series of outdoor sculptures and installations is now waiting be discovered at strategic sites across the city’s centre.
Commissions include Rashid Johnson’s Stacked Heads (2020) at Canning Dock Quayside; Teresa Solar’s Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark) (2021) at Exchange Flags; Linder’s Bower of Bliss (2021) at Liverpool ONE and Jorgge Menna Barreto’s mural Mauvais Alphabet (2021) on the side of Bluecoat. Presiding over the city, Larry Achiampong’s Pan African For the Relic Travellers’ Alliance can be found across ten locations, including St. George’s Hall, St. John’s Gardens, Central Library, Exchange Flags, Liverpool Parish Church, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. building, Edmund Gardener Vessel, Cunard Building, St. Luke’s Church and Liverpool ONE.
Local residents can safely experience these inspiring new additions to the city’s landscape, while observing COVID-19 guidance, including social distancing at all times and wearing appropriate face coverings.
Sonic & Digital Commissions
Online, 3 sonic and digital commissions are available to experience on the new Biennial Portal www.liverpoolbiennial2021.com, comprising Transmission: A series of five Podcasts on Disease and Pandemics in a Distorted World (2021) by Ines Doujak, in collaboration with John Barker; B3(TNSCAM) (2021), a digital experiment in reimagining the future of curating in the light of Artificial Intelligence by artists UBERMORGEN, digital humanist Leonardo Impett and curator Joasia Krysa; and as part of the Learning Programme, a performative series of pre-recorded and live streamed workshops by KeKeÇa Body Percussion Ensemble which invite schools and wider audiences to participate, using their own bodies as percussive instruments.
New Commissions for April
From 23 April, Liverpool Biennial 2021 will reveal 3 new commissions, including Superposition (2021) by Erick Beltrán, whose sound pieces and corresponding graphical drawings around his research into Latino American Cumbia music will be presented in a fleet of ComCab taxis travelling around Liverpool’s city centre. Beltrán sees the body move through ripples and rhythms as a way of reflecting on different forms of being and coming together beyond the conventional understanding of the individual.
Luisa Ungar offers members of the public a personal engagement with experts in clairvoyance through a series of weekly phone calls available on demand. Following the caller’s inquiries, each conversation might offer constellations that connect to Liverpool’s history as a contact point for global trade, through the interpretation of various types of material. Inspired by reports of contagion, hygienisation and witch-hunting in the city A Regurgitation is a Song is a Spell (Consultations to recreate the colonial disease) (2021) is based on research of official records, rumour and historical gossip.
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s La Pensée Férale (2021) will be displayed at Crown Street Park, featuring a replica of a Pau Rei, a native tree of the Brazilian Mata Atlántica, embedded with the eye of an Indian pariah dog from Bangladesh, and surrounded by newly planted Fagus Purpurea Pendula trees. La Pensée Férale raises questions about subjectivity as a cultural construction as well as our attitude towards the environment, reinforcing that nature is not without perception or feeling.
Liverpool Biennial: The Inside Chapter
The full festival of nine exhibitions for Liverpool Biennial 2021: The Stomach and the Port opens on 19 May.
Advance ticket booking is recommended and entry is free for all.
Our outdoor works by seven different artists are already open, around the clock, across the city.
Most venues are operating timed ticketing. We recommend that all visitors book a slot in advance as capacity is limited. This is to ensure everyone has plenty of space for social distancing. Ticket holders will be given priority entry.
If you’d like to visit multiple Liverpool Biennial exhibitions at different venues, please book separate tickets for each. One ticket per visitor, per venue is required.
Some participating venues will be operating individual ticketing systems, please find further information below:
Bluecoat
19 May – 5 September
Booking is required and walk-ins are subject to capacity. Tickets available here.
Tate Liverpool
19 May – 20 June
Booking is required. Tickets available here.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Building
19 May – 27 June
Booking is required. Tickets available here.
Lewis’s Building
19 May – 27 June
Booking is recommended and walk-ins are subject to capacity. Seperate tickets for each exhibition space within the venue are required. Find more information here.
- Book for May – Exhibition Space 1: here | Exhibition Space 2: here.
- Book for June – Exhibition Space 1: here | Exhibition Space 2: here.
Cotton Exchange Building
19 May – 27 June
Booking is recommended and walk-ins are subject to capacity. Tickets available.
Lush Building
19 May – 27 June
Booking is recommended and walk-ins are subject to capacity. Tickets available.
FACT
19 May – 29 August
No booking required. Walk-ins welcome.
Open Eye Gallery
19 May – 6 June
No booking required. Walk-ins welcome.
Central Library
19 May – 27 June
No booking required. Walk-ins welcome.