Liverpool Biennial 2012: Hospitality: The Unexpected Guest
I’ve only seen a fraction of the Biennial so far, and not much rubbish to note except Laura Keeble’s John Moores Painting Prize short-listed “I’d like to teach the world to sing!” which has done the rounds in the media. Sadly she didn’t win a prize but inclusion in the show at the Walker Art Gallery as part of the Biennial means the squashed coke can painted with scenes from the London riots in August 2010 and titled with the song name which originated as the Coca-Cola TV ad jingle “Buy the World a Coke” in 1971, can be seen by all.
www.a-n.co.uk/p/2275026//1818356
However, I did attend the artists’ talks on 15 September at the Bluecoat which included a conversation between artists Anja Kirschner and David Panos and Costas Douzinas who provided the Liverpool Biennial 2012 catalogue essay. In relation to Kirschner and Panos’ film installation at FACT, Douzinas talked about money and how the Greek for money/currency nomisma is derived from the Greek word for law. He described how metal has a use value and a change value and in archaeological terms a meaning value. Before the stamp of the law on a coin, the coin was simply worth it’s weight in silver/gold and the stamp regulated the value of the material. Douzinas talked about the move (push) towards a cashless society which would render coinage neither of use value nor change value. Coinage may become rubbish, just as the Museum of Rubbish as presented at the TRASH conference 13/14 September showed how money in Brazil (which has changed several times over the last few decades) has been rendered rubbish.
