Art in Liverpool: Indie edition
Another week looking at art institutions in Liverpool this week, OUTPUT and the Convenience Gallery, both small-time places that are looking to help the artist community within Merseyside.
The day was a bit drizzly as I set off towards OUTPUT, I was also rushing as I left a tad late, but I made it in time albeit a little out of breath. I had been especially looking forward to visiting OUTPUT after hearing Gabrielle de la Puente’s talk a couple weeks ago. Though I’d walked past the space many times I never had the courage to go in purely because it’s such a small space it made me a little anxious to go in on my own. The space isn’t also as big as I imagined it was when seeing pictures previously. There’s a small vintage store in the front as you walk and then the exhibition space. We took our time to look at Output open 4, the current exhibition before moving into the back room, a small industrial space with a bar at the back and stage at the front The walls were dark and we all sat on mismatched chairs as Gabriella sat crossed legged in front of us on the stage. It’s was a cool space, there were thin lights stretched across the ceiling which we found out were actually video’s being sent across making a light show.
After we were all eventually settled Gabriella told us about her background doing a fine art degree and how she found her way into writing about art over doing art within the White Pube. This then led to the creation of OUTPUT which she runs independently. Gabriella’s story is definitely inspiring, staring up an art writing website with a friend to running a whole gallery space. And OUTPUT does a lot, from putting on a new exhibition every 2 weeks meaning a lot gets shown in a year and amongst doing other things such as crit groups and meetings with artists and communicating, it’s a lot for one person and is pretty impressive. After talking about setting up OUTPUT and future plans we moved on to discuss the art scene in Liverpool. Over the weeks we have visited many places in and out of Liverpool though not being intimately involved in those lives it’s hard to get a full scope on what it’s like to be a working artist in Liverpool. Gabriella made it clear that a lot of the bigger places like The Bluecoat and Fact though they are based in Liverpool don’t really help artists within Liverpool meaning that many artists feel the need to move away to actually get noticed. Alongside this these places only have a small number of exhibitions a year and all follow the same kind of theme, whereas when looking through OUTPUT and their past exhibitions they use work from artists within Mersyside helping them to exhibit their work within Liverpool.
OUTPUT Gallery exterior
After this enlightening experience we had a lunch break, went to McDonald's, then all met back up at the central station, this time with James in tow. Our next stop was the Convenience gallery situated in Birkenhead and after a short train journey and a quick walk, we had arrived.
Before this module, I hadn’t heard of the Convenience Gallery, though after visiting I definitely want to go back to see all the things that they have going on. The space is within a warehouse with tables and chairs and a bar when you first walk in. There were colourful hanging tassels, bounties stung across above us and colourful posters on the walls for events gone by. We met with Ryan Gauge and Andy Shaw and made our way past some beach hut offices and up the stairs into the small gallery space. As they were currently setting up a new exhibition there were sculptures lying around and a few artworks hung up around us as we huddled together in a little semi-circle. Similar to our visit to OUTPUT we learnt about the creation of the Convenience gallery and how it moved into this space and how both Ryan and Andy came to run it together.
After a while, the rain became very heavy on the metal roof and we couldn’t really hear each other so we moved downstairs into their conference room. All huddled around the long table our conversation turned more into the issues with the art community in Merseyside and the lack of opportunity there is for artists even though we have all these art spaces and galleries. We touched on how music-wise it’s easier but art-wise it’s much more difficult and there could be so much more done to help the artist by the bigger industries.
I’ve found that there’s a lot that can be improved and through talking to everyone we met it seems to be the consensus. So much can be done in and around Liverpool to help artists practising there so that they don’t have to move out to exhibit or be known but instead can stay and help to progress Liverpool’s art culture further.