I haven’t been up to Manchester for nearly a year, so I was delighted when All Points North invited me to go up to take a look at Asia Triennial Manchester 2011.

Asia Triennial, showcasing a range of exhibitions, events and commissions across multiple venues in the city, first took place in 2008. The brainchild of Shisha, an agency promoting South Asian craft and visual art in the UK, Asia Triennial aims to offer a diverse and comprehensive survey of Asian art. Following on from the 2008 offering, 2011 saw the Triennial return for its second incarnation, an ambitious festival bringing together 17 venues, 40 artists and 32 new commissions. Here’s my review of a handful of the exhibitions that are on offer – unfortunately all I was able to see in a single day…

Image credit: Brass Art, 'Still Life No.1', 2011.
(3D objects in acrylic polymer, light source, table in black box environment.Dimensions variable)

Dark Matters at the Whitworth is an intelligent and sophisticated group show, bringing together a variety of contemporary work exploring shadows, darkness, illusion and technology. There are in fact only a couple of Asian artists in the exhibition, Hiraki Sawa from Japan and Ja-Young Ku from Korea, but nonetheless it made an impressive start to my ATM 11 experience.

Appropriately enough, there’s an element of phantasmagoric playfulness to many of the works in this exhibition. Daniel Rozin’s 'Snow Mirror', for example, initially appears to be simply a projection of the grey ‘snowstorm’ we associate with a disrupted TV signal, but come closer and we soon realise that we ourselves are appearing as ghostly figures on the screen. Meanwhile, Barnaby Hoskins’ 'Black Flood' surrounds us with four walls on which simultaneous video projections play out images of inky, turbulent waters. Outside, 'Thoughts', an installation by the same artist, sees a series of three-dimensional butterfly wings scattered across the gallery walls casting delicate shadows. However it is a new commission from the collective Brass Art that for me was the standout piece in this exhibition. Recalling early 19th century technologies such as zoetropes and magic lanterns, 'Still Life No. 1' is an enchanting installation in which a glittering array of transparent figurines and delicate cellophane constructions is illuminated by a travelling light source, sending a magical carousel of shadows playing across the gallery walls.

The exhibition is accompanied by a variety of works exploring the same themes from the Whitworth’s collection, by artists ranging from Francis Bacon to Anish Kapoor. Showing alongside it is Air Pressure, a thoughtful video work by Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox, which precisely evokes the distinctive atmosphere of a farm situated on the edge of Japan’s Nara Airport runway.

 Image credit: Rashid Rana 'Desperately Seeking Paradise 2' 

Installation view at Cornerhouse Manchester 

Courtesy of Tiroche Deleon Collection & Art Vantage Ltd

Along Oxford Road, Cornerhouse plays host to a very different exhibition. Everything is Happening at Once is the UK’s first solo show by the prominent Pakistani artist Rashid Rana.

Like many of the artists in Dark Matters, Rana is concerned with exploring and interrogating the photographic image, combining sculpture, photography and video to blur the boundaries between two and three dimensional image making. However, unlike the quiet, dimly-lit Whitworth galleries, here we find ourselves in a more disquieting space, in which pixellated cubes reveal themselves as defamiliarised representations of ordinary household objects such as a fridge or a vase of flowers, whilst photomosaic images of veiled women are, on close inspection, composed from numerous tiny pornographic images. Whilst these powerful works have no doubt provoked debate, it was the more ambiguous sculptural installation, 'Desperately Seeking Paradise II' with its bold lines and angled mirrors that was, for me, the most interesting work in this ambitious exhibition.

Image credit: Ozman Bozkurt PiST//// 

Life in the UK / Balance of Probabilities installation in Castlefield Gallery Manchester 2011

Not far away, Life in the UK/Balance of Probabilities at Castlefield Gallery is another debut – this time the first UK commission by Istanbul-based Didem Özbek and Osman Bozkurt of PiST///. This exhibition sees Castlefield transformed into a temporary Visa Application Centre: entering the gallery is immediately unsettling, as we find ourselves stepping through a metal detector and accept a ticket from a machine, simulating the experience of entering a Visa Application Centre in Turkey. Inside the gallery, a variety of multiartform works explore related issues such as identity, migration, borders, power and control, employing both real stories and fiction with a pleasing touch of dark comedy.

Image credit: Adeela Suleman Drained 2011 - detail

 Whilst the Castlefield show is hard to miss, you might have to look more carefully in the dimly-lit interior of Manchester Cathedral to find the ATM 11 commission Drained from Adeela Suleman, an artist from Karachi known for her sculptures that appropriate household objects. Situated in the nave of the cathedral, this glittering, spiky spiral constructed from metal drain covers has strangely meditative properties, and is surprisingly well-suited to its gilt-edged, grand surroundings.

I finished my visit with a trip to Chinese Arts Centre, who have created Institution for the Future as their contribution to ATM 11. This exhibition showcases the work of art collectives and small, independent artist groups who are actively engaged with their local arts infrastructure, and are interested in exploring the question of what kind of art institutions we might need from the future. The collective ruangrupa’s artist-led space survival kit transforms the gallery floor and walls with a cheerful clutter of artist materials, camping equipment, useful literature and scribbled ideas, whilst a number of video installations create the sense of a throng of voices engaged in lively debate. A bold poster created for the 2008 Taipei Bienniale by Jun Yang, immediately grabs our attention, posing direct questions about the future of the institutions of art and challenging the audience themselves to help supply the answers.

Image credit: Jun Yang, Galerie Martin Janda Vienna, Vitamin Creative Space Beijing, ShugoArts Tokyo 

(Institution for the Future, Chinese Arts Centre)

There’s so much more to see in this year’s Asia Triennial Manchester, but even this small selection of exhibitions offered up an intriguing variety of work.  Critics have suggested that this year’s Triennial is too vague and incoherent, and certainly the declared themes of time and generation are sometimes hard to draw out. Dany Louise, writing for the New Statesman, describes it as ‘a curious event, loosely curated.... somehow… both too open and too specific to create genuine cultural dialogue.’ Yet for me, it was this openness, this looseness that ultimately gave ATM 11 its strength, providing it with the space and freedom to challenge the conventions and stereotypes of what today’s art from Asia might be. Coherent it may not be, but Asia Triennial Manchester is certainly a richly varied and celebratory showcase of contemporary Asian art.

This review was written for All Points North and is also published on the All Points North website here. Check out the website for more reviews and information about contemporary art events and festivals happening in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions this Autumn

I have realised recently that I'm often just as struck by the mood or feel of an exhibition as I am by the individual works themeselves. This was particularly true of my recent whistle-stop tour of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009 at Cornerhouse, Manchester.

Now in its 60th year, New Contemporaries is made up of work selected from open submissions of work by the UK’s art school undergraduates and postgraduates. As such, there's no doubt that it's a difficult show to engage with: often controversial and often contested. This year's offering, selected by Ellen Gallagher, Saskia Olde Wolbers, John Stezaker and Wolfgang Tillmans, is no exception, even amongst the Manchester blogging community. For example, whilst Manchester Photography hails it as “THE Manchester show of the year so far” and for the Art of Fiction it is a “diverse, considered show”, runpaintrun characterises it as “the equivalent of a biggest vegetable competition at a country show. There is only so much you can be impressed by a marrow, how ever bloody big, shiny and perfectly formed it is.”

Now, I have to say I can appreciate where runpaintrun is coming from on this one. There’s no doubt that the quality of artworks in this show varies wildly – sometimes they’re experimental, sometimes controversial, sometimes intriguing, and sometimes just a little bit underwhelming. But for me, a visit to New Contemporaries is somewhat different from a visit to any other exhibition. It’s about a mood, an energy, an overall narrative. At the end of the day, New Contemporaries is a graduate show - albeit one of a very sophisticated kind - and as such, I enjoy it for the multiple directions it points me, the possibilities it offers for the future. It’s often a bit rough and raw around the edges and usually there’s a few works that I really can’t stand, but there's always something that stands out: this time, for me, it was Frances Blythe's melancholy and slightly spooky photographs of suburbia. What is more, amongst this thoughtfully-curated jumble, something rises to the surface - vitality, energy, and however misplaced it may be, an unabashed and strangely infectious optimism about the future of contemporary art.

[Image: Susanne Ludwig, Passing Church. Feasibility Fantasies via Cornerhouse]

It’s now just 13 days until the international festival hits Manchester. In the meantime, there are lots of things to see and do. It’s a while since I’ve written about art in Manchester, so I thought I’d mention a few highlights:


1. Between Tracks: The Salford Restoration Office & The International 3

Between Tracks (until 18 July) is an exhibition of new work by nine British and Swiss artists, developed in collaboration with the St. Gallen based artist group NETEX. The aim of the show is to encourage discussion between artists who are based outside their respective country’s main art centres. In May of this year, twelve Manchester artists exhibited alongside six Swiss artists in St. Gallen’s disused Badhaus building: Between Tracks is the second part of the exchange process, showing work by five Swiss artists alongside four British artists. Highlights for me were Aleksandra Signer’s video works, David Sherry’s quirky drawings and Dave Griffiths’ playful and intriguing Nataraja.

2. POI: Moving, Mapping, Memory: Cornerhouse

POI is the first in a new series of exhibitions at Cornerhouse entitled Editions - an annual month-long venture to provide a showcase for new, innovative and experimental art, and a testing-ground for risk-taking ideas and cross-disciplinary collaborations. POI (which stands for both ‘P.O.I.’ or point of interest, and for ‘poi’, the Maori art of spinning objects through space) brings together a range of media artworks by eight artists to explore notions of how we understand, map and remember both time and space. This varied exhibition brings together video installations, sound sculptures, textile media and interactive installations: highlights for me were Rob Strongitham’s atmospheric piece Ar Dievu, and Eimer Birkbek’s sound installation Instantanés (Marseille)



3. The Cutting Room Experiment



The votes are in, and the schedule for Saturday has been announced! As well as musical statues, clothes swapping, extreme space hopper racing, record-breaking conga lines and a silent disco, visitors will have the opportunity to join in with writing a collabotative ‘Book of 1000 authors’ and check out an unveiling of a new work by artist Dan Dubowitz. To see the full schedule go here.



4. MMU Degree Show


It’s that time of year again! The MMU Degree shows will be open to the public from Saturday 20 June - Sunday 28 June, and the private view is tonight! Always good fun, and a great opportunity to spot Manchester’s newest up and coming talents...

5. Artist Book Fair: A Foundation



OK, so it’s not a Manchester event, but it’s a mere train ride away. A Foundation will be holding the second Liverpool Artist’s Book Fair on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 June, complete with stalls, book-related performances (including one from the excellent Publish & Be Damned), readings, games and (most important of all) delicious cakes. Artists, illustrators and small presses from across the UK will be showcasing a whole selection of their books, zines and paper-based work: take home a unique work of art from as little as £1! And if you’re over that way, why not also check out the Colour Chart exhibition at Tate Liverpool or the End of the Line exhibition at the Bluecoat which explores fresh approaches to contemporary drawing?


If you’re still short of things to do in the coming week, have a gander at Soup o' th' Day, a handy new visual representation of what’s going on in Manchester on any given day!

And finally, not forgetting this year's Best of Manchester Awards! The shortlist has now been announced: shortlisted in the Art category are Manchester luminaries Rachel Goodyear, Contents May Vary and Owl Project, with special mentions also going to Maurice Carlin and Nick Jordan. The winner will be announced on 23 July. And keep your eyes peeled for the mysterious spoof BOMA posters around town, as seen above... find out more about the mystery here.

I was interested to read Charles Leadbeater’s new essay for Cornerhouse, The Art of With, earlier this week. Taking Leadbeater's influential notion of "We-Think" - a new collaborative, participatory way of working rooted in Web 2.0- and applying it to both the arts sector and contemporary arts practice, The Art of With asserts that we are increasingly moving away from a notion of art that is predominantly “for” or "to" towards a new and inspiring 21st century “art of with” that turns spectators into producers, breaks down conventional hierarchies and promotes sharing and openness. Leadbeater suggests that artists and arts institutions should be “critically and creatively engaging” with this new culture, “exploring, probing, questioning, challenging it, opening up possibilities within it that commerce will not entertain,” citing works such as Martin Creed’s Work 850, Anthony Gormley’s plans for the 4th Plinth and Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave as examples of collaborative artworks.

Leadbeter’s essay makes for intriguing and often inspiring reading, but what especially interested me was his use of the term “avant-garde.” This term recurs numerous times throughout the text, with Leadbeter positing the participatory “art of with” as a new, 21st century avant-garde in opposition to that of the 20th century, which he defines as an avant-garde characterised by the principles of “separate and shock.” But what does Leadbeater really mean when he talks about a new “avant-garde”? He doesn’t clearly define what he means at any point, but it’s certainly a courageous choice of terminology, raising a whole number of interesting questions. 



The term “avant-garde” is often used in a very general, conversational sense to denote more or less anything that’s considered new, innovative or experimental. But in the academic territory that Leadbeater seems to be negotiating in this essay given his references to thinkers and theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Guy Debord, it is often used with a rather more precise (though contested) definition. There are whole books dedicated to what we mean when we talk about "the avant-garde," perhaps the most significant being Peter Bürger’s influential Marxist analysis of the character and function of avant-garde art, Theory of the Avant-Garde, which remains central to our understanding of this loaded term.

To vulgarise his argument hugely, Bürger asserts that the avant-garde artwork is that which represents a protest against the nature of art as an institution within alienated bourgeois society, challenging the conventional notion of art as autonomous, elevated or rarified, detached from everyday existence. For Bürger, an artwork such as Duchamp’s Fountain can be considered truly avant-garde because it mounts an attack on the status of art, through challenging the conventional modes of its production and reception, revealing the institution of art to be ideologically determined, and using a variety of strategies to attempt to integrate art into everyday life itself. Bürger describes how the avant-garde artworks of the Dada and Surrealist movements reflect the desire to dissolve the boundaries between art and life, integrating art into everyday existence and bringing about a state in which “praxis is aesthetic and art is practical.”


So much for the theory bit. Now, many people have challenged and criticised Bürger’s definition: some feel it is too limited or dogmatic, others that it is just too pessimistic - after all, Bürger essentially asserts that post-Dada and Surrealism, 20th century artwork has been merely “neo-avant-garde” - a repetition of the failed gestures of the earlier avant-garde movements - and denies the possibility of any subsequent avant-garde. He’s also been criticised by those such as Manchester University’s own Amelia Jones, who have identified the failure of his arguments to consider how works such as Fountain have subsequently been re-appropriated by the institution of art, ironically becoming representations of the very notions of “artistic genius” that Dada sought to challenge. But whether or not we “buy” Bürger’s definition of avant-gardism, or the various others set out by historians, critics and theorists, all this is at stake when Leadbeater employs the term “avant-garde” in The Art of With.



Read from this angle, Leadbeater’s notion of the 20th century avant-garde as being characterised by the desire to reinforce the separation of art and life, and by the idea of art as elevated and autonomous, seems a rather odd one. Like Adrian Slatcher (whose response to The Art of With you can read on his blog here) I would absolutely question the idea that the avant-garde could ever be considered non-collaborative. For me, it might be more interesting to interpret the participatory and collaborative artworks Leadbeater references as attempts to re-invigorate the ideas of the 20th century avant-garde movements such as Dada, Surrealism and Situationism: perhaps the "art of with” could in fact be better configured as not the opposition to but as the continuation of their project in its attempt to integrate art more closely into the fabric of everyday life. 



But can we really accept Leadbeater's assertion that the "art of with" has the potential to become a 21st century avant-garde? It may be new, innovative and challenging but within this specific art theoretical framework, avant-garde it probably isn't. But in the end, does it really matter? As with so many things, all this really comes down to is semantics. Yet all the same, it would have been interesting to see this essay take a closer look at the term Leadbeater uses to structure his account - its complexity, its contentiousness, its multiple definitions - as part of this otherwise engaging and pertinent essay about the possibilities for a 21st century art practice characterised by collaboration, a new participatory “art of with”.

If you’d like to read more, you can check out the draft essay here, comment on the text paragraph by paragraph here or join the wiki here. There will be also be seminar on The Art of With at Cornerhouse in June.