Issue 106 / Dec 2019/Jan 2020

OF
EXCLAMATION
Community Assemble
It was 2006 when Laurence Westgaph said to me that FACT should have been
built in Toxteth. Liverpool was in peak city centre regeneration at that point and
there was still an assumption that to have good art it needs to be in the centre, and
in a building.
The night of the Turner Prize in 2015, Granby CLT hired out Liverpool Small
Cinema. No one expected the Four Streets and Assemble to win the coveted arts
prize. The pictures of when they win remind me of Liverpool in Istanbul in 2005. The
underdogs become the obvious choice.
Just a handful of years before, the residents of Granby were still convincing the
council they deserved to keep their homes. After the win, they’re fielding calls from
all over the world.
Before then, community was a thing many arts organisations used to tick boxes.
You’d get a few gems, but we’re talking top down, not bottom up.
Post 2015, you can’t get away with pretending. Liverpool needed a kick up the
arse. It needed art that was by its people if it wanted to be for its people. It needed
reminding its art scene always works when it’s a bit punk; a bit less curated for a
CV. It’s not there yet, but it’s a shift in power. Liverpool’s art scene needed a punk
moment, and this was quite punk.
Laura Brown
Niloo Sharifi
K Is For Kazimier
A spaceship being hoisted over Wolstenholme Square, sparks flying off its
base, following a symbolic battle between the evil Monotopia developers and
Captain Kronos, astride a giant ostrich. You couldn’t have imagined a better sendoff
for The Kazimier, the venue that was the creative, madcap, maverick focal point
of artistic possibility in Liverpool.
The night that the Kaz closed, New Year’s Eve 2015, was a momentous,
ambitious celebration of all that the venue-cum-club had come to stand for. By the
time the great burning K sign lit up the night sky, the writing had already long been
daubed on the wall: Wolstenholme Square had already been shorn of MelloMello
and Wolstenholme Creative Space – fellow outsider, independent spaces run by
artists, for artists. Prior to their arrival, it was a part of town where people wouldn’t
dare venture; since their departure, the square has succumbed to the endless
sprawl of Liverpool ONE and premium city centre living apartments. Only the
Kazimier Garden and Penelope light installation remain, towered over by flats and
hemmed in by ‘vertical drinking establishments’ and ‘retail opportunities’.
The escape to Planet Kronos ultimately only took the remaining Kazimier team
as far as the Invisible Wind Factory in the North Docks – but the metaphorical
flight of the city’s creative heart outside of the city centre still hasn’t materialised.
The Baltic Triangle and Ten Streets projects aren’t quite the promised lands they
first seemed, and a gaping, K-shaped hole still remains at the heart of Liverpool’s
creative scene.
Christopher Torpey
Diggin’ Your Selections
The vinyl boom hit Liverpool city centre after a lengthy period of
slim pickings for those preferring the physical product in its traditional
format, the omnipresent Probe aside. Dig Vinyl launching on Bold
Street five years ago was a game changer, a second-hand record shop
with knowledgeable staff well-armed with picky good tastes and
attuned to customers’ wants.
As a lifelong collector, Manchester was a common destination
before Dig’s arrival, but the record-buying community here is now able
to indulge in a wider tour of record shops on home turf thanks to the
opening of Dig: Phase One/Jacaranda, 81 Renshaw and Pop Boutique.
There’s a marked difference between a record shop and a space which
simply has records for sale. Dig is securely in the former category – as
is now the case with stores that followed – supporting new releases
from new local artists and signposting rarities, but equally open to tips
from those they sell to.
Cath Holland
FEATURE
31