LIVERPOOL arts and culture festival the Liverpool Biennial has been crowned the North West's tourism experience of the year.

It beat competition from around the region when the cream of the North West's tourism industry gathered at Liverpool Hope University last night for the second annual England's North West Tourism Awards.

The Biennial, the UK's biggest contemporary visual arts event, will now go through to national finals, challenging for a national "Oscar".

More (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16233772%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=nw%2dtourism%2dcrown%2dgoes%2dto%2dlive rpool%2darts%2dfestival-name_page.html)....

http://www.artdaily.com/imagenes/2005/02/25/za602.jpg

BBC invented excuse to buy Emin sculpture

THE BBC was embarrassed last night by e-mails that showed it “invented” a justification for spending £60,000 of licence payers’ money commissioning a Tracey Emin sculpture.

Emin’s Roman Standard sculpture of a bird on a post was bought by the BBC at a time when Mark Thompson, its director-general, was announcing big cost cuts.

Internal e-mails revealed serious doubts within the organisation about spending so much on a sculpture that had no links to the corporation.

An e-mail dated February 22 from senior BBC publicist Janet Morrow to Vanda Rumney, head of communications, gave warning that the commission could create a “sticky situation on the public art front which could blow up”.

Morrow noted that the sculpture “is not connected to a BBC building, nor is it linked in any way to a BBC broadcast or BBC activity — the BBC has purely used licence fee money to create a public sculpture”.

She then said she had “invented” a “plausible line” to justify the commission. Her line, that the BBC should claim it had a long history of commissioning visual art, was later adopted by Alan Yentob, the BBC’s creative director.

The e-mails also reveal the BBC was nervous about admitting that it had spent £60,000 on the sculpture. Morrow admits that she initially had to “fudge” questions about the cost.

She adds: “We could be pressed about exactly how much it cost and why it’s appropriate for the BBC to spend licence fee money in this way, especially at a time of supposed cost-cutting. Hmmm . . .”

Emin was surprised by the revelations last night. “The BBC told me they were very, very happy with the commission. Roman Standard is very low-cost considering the time and effort it took. I think the BBC should have spent £300,000 on it. They got a bargain as far as I’m concerned.”

Her work, which was unveiled in February, stands outside Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

It was commissioned by the BBC to mark the city’s role as the European City of Culture.

Source: The Sunday Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1880715,00.html)


See also The BBC, Emin and a bill for £60,000 (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1646751,00.html) in The Observer, Work of art (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1881080,00.html) and We're paying for our art – but the price is a secret (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1881691,00.html) in The Times.

http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,245244,00.gif

:rolleyes:

Row over Emin bird sculpture
Nov 22 2005
By Adrian Butler, Liverpool Echo

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/icliverpool/nov2005/5/2/000397CE-3007-1383-A2480C01AC1BF814.jpg

A CONTROVERSIAL statue could be on the move.

Tracey Emin's £60,000 bird on a pole could be taken from its perch outside Liverpool Cathedral and put outside the BBC's new Radio Merseyside headquarters in Hanover Street.

A BBC spokesman said: "It could be that a site could be picked at Radio Merseyside. If at the end of the year people wanted it moved, we would move it."

The BBC revealed the plans following claims a publicist had to invent reasons the sculpture was commissioned, using licence payers' money, in the first place.

In a confidential email, publicist Janet Morrow warned that critics would ask why the BBC was spending the money at a time when it was cutting costs.

She said: "The Public Art Committee doesn't have a clear rationale about why the sculpture was commissioned."

So she claims she came up with possible reasons which could be described as "plausible (up to a point)".

They included:

The work is the BBC's contribution to the Biennial art festival.

The BBC has a long history of commissioning visual art (Eric Gill for BH, John Piper for TVC, etc).

The work will be on public view for a considerable time.

Emin's sculpture was installed outside the Anglican cathedral in February.

Today a BBC spokesman distanced the corporation from Ms Morrow's email, insisting the statue had been commissioned to celebrate Liverpool's culture year.

He said: "We felt this was a one-off situation.

"We got the statue at a discounted rate as it was probably worth £250,000."

A spokesman from the diocese of Liverpool declined to comment.

Source: icLiverpool (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16400135%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=row%2dover%2demin%2dbird%2dsculpture-name_page.html)

We have a scaffold pole halfway down the garden with the washing line attached, quite often of an evening, a blackbird will perch on the top singing it's heart out. It's no 'roman standard' but it gives us loads of pleasure and costs nothing. More than can be said of Tracey Emin.

but it gives us loads of pleasure and costs nothing. More than can be said of Tracey Emin.
Not what I heard! :badgrin:

http://www.artnet.com/artwork_images_424046260_129602_Tracey-Emin.jpg
Tracey Emin - Everyone I Ever Slept With 1963-1995

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

LIVERPOOL Biennial, the UK's biggest contemporary visual arts event, has been short-listed for a national tourism "Oscar". more (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16728304%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=arts%2dspectacular%2dcompetes%2dwith%2d london%2deye%2dfor%2daward-name_page.html)

:p

LIVERPOOL'S main arts groups have won £12m funding for 2008 and beyond.

The city council's three-year funding plan is backed by the Arts Council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which have already promised £10m to the 08 plans.

It means Liverpool's theatres, the Philharmonic and the Tate gallery, as well as the arts biennial and other major festivals, are effectively safe from any slippage in funding until at least the Capital of Culture celebrations are over.

* The full list of organisations in the 12m three-year plan:

Africa Oye; Ariel Trust; Arts In Regeneration; Unity Theatre; Liverpool Biennial; Bluecoat Society of Arts; Brouhaha Street Festival; Fact arts technology centre; Homotopia; Hope Street; Lantern Festival; Liverpool Irish Festival; Liverpool Centre for Arts Development; Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival; Liverpool Comedy Trust; Liverpool Theatres Trust; Merseyside Dance Initiative; Milapfest; Mzone; NWDAF and DaDaFest; Open Eye Gallery; Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra; Positive Impact; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Tate Liverpool; Walk the Plank theatre company; Writing on the Wall Festival.

THE BIENNIAL festival will see the opening of a major new contemporary art centre in Liverpool.

Greenland Street, the brainchild of A Foundation, aims to showcase the best local, regional, national and international visual arts.

It is housed in a former factory and warehouse complex off Jamaica Street near the city centre in what is becoming the city's arts quarter.

The venue's opening programme will take place during next month's Biennial arts festival and will include a multimedia extravaganza by Grizedale Arts. It includes a 14ft stone xylophone, erotic dancer, re-enactment of petty crimes from 1950s Liverpool and an allotments produce fair.

Greenland Street is made up of three exhibition spaces - The Furnace, The Blade Factory and The Coach Shed - which will allow large scale artists' projects, Liverpool's first contemporary artists' residency scheme and collaborations with other arts venues around the world.

There will also be an arts bookshop, café and hospitality area.

Fiona Boundy, director of exhibitions, said: "The buildings themselves are pretty remarkableand it's an incredible opportunity for artists to work in them.

"The city is changing and the spaces that were available for artand artists are no longer available. Ropewalks has become very expensive.

"Liverpool Vision has been very supportive in earmarking part of this area for a new creative quarter, but there'sstill along way to go. Thereneeds to be newinfra-structure in terms of services and shops."

A Foundation was set up to revitalise Liverpool's contemporary art scene. It receives funding from the Nigel Moores familycharitable foundation.

Greenland Street will be the permanent venue for the judging of the John Moores Prize for contemporary painting.

THE pews disappeared long ago, but few would have imagined that one day they would be replaced with a flotilla of boats. more (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17707531%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=church%2ds%2dcongregation%2dis%2da%2dfl eet%2dof%2dbiennial%2dboats-name_page.html)

Art drops anchor in ruined church

David Ward
Saturday September 16, 2006
The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/)

For years the only way the curious could see into the roofless shell of St Luke's church in Liverpool, burned out by a German incendiary bomb in 1941, has been to jump up and down and take a quick peek through glassless windows.

Now, courtesy of the fourth Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art which opened yesterday, locals and visitors can climb a platform to discover that 56 green upturned fibreglass boats, moulded from a 114-year-old original found on the coast of Slovenia, have docked in the nave and chancel.

"I fell in love with St Luke's," said Slovenian artist Matej Andraz Vogrincic, whose work is one of 35 commissions for the festival. "On a poster in the Museum of Liverpool Life inviting visitors to come to New Brighton beach, I saw an upturned boat and I liked the shape. My work refers to the Mersey, migration, people coming and going. The shape of the boats also echoes shapes in the tower and the windows."
The contemplative work is likely to cause less of a scandal than Yoko Ono's breast and pubic triangle banners created for the 2004 festival. "But it will be hugely popular because it is a wonderful visual experience," said Lewis Biggs, the Biennial's director.

In a comment on the speed of regeneration on Merseyside, Hans Peter Kuhn has raised an 18m-high illuminated question mark on the Birkenhead side of the river.

"The city is changing fast," added Mr Biggs. "How do you hang on to the past without becoming nostalgic and while embracing the future? That's what the artists are latching on to."

Other works to be found on the streets of the city include Jeppe Heim's white steel rollercoaster of a bench.

"I give it a week," said a resident. "The kids will be out with angle grinders, saws and axes."

Source: Guardian Unlimited (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1873873,00.html)

"I give it a week," said a resident. "The kids will be out with angle grinders, saws and axes."

Source: Guardian Unlimited (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1873873,00.html)

Eh? Who said this?

Eh? Who said this?
A resident! :rolleyes:

A resident! :rolleyes:

But why end a report about a huge festival with that remark?

Seems the Guardian always have to get their little dig at Liverpool in somewhere or other. :angry:

Seems the Guardian always have to get their little dig at Liverpool in somewhere or other. :angry:

That closing comment was completely uncalled for, that's not to say things like that would hgappen, they might. But they would anywhere unless u live in some protected bubble somewhere.

The UK's largest international festival of contemporary art and they end with a comment like that :rolleyes:

See the Liverpool Biennial 2006 website here (http://www.biennial.com/). :celb (23):

See the Liverpool Biennial 2006 website here (http://www.biennial.com/). :celb (23):

I hope they update the itineraries and maps page soon as I would like to 'record' this in pictures.

:)

Liverpool Biennial 2006

For 10 weeks every two years, several hundred of the world's most exciting visual artists show their work in more than 40 locations across Liverpool city centre, from major gallery spaces to unexpected temporary locations.

The fourth Liverpool Biennial launches on 16 September 2006 and continues until 26 November. It promises some examples of "reverse colonialism" and to release the city's energy channels, all through the power of art!

Paintings selected by Sir Peter Blake and Tracey Emin, a glittering pavement of shattered glass gathered from crime scenes, work by the cream of Britain's art school graduates, a football pitch designed as an obstacle course situated near the Mersey, caged lions outside St George's Hall, and Panamanian Bus Painters transforming the city's public transport - just a taste of what can be seen in Liverpool this autumn.

Lewis Biggs, Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial said, "Liverpool Biennial offers art that is enjoyable, challenging, thought-provoking and amusing. Inspired by the people, history and fabric of Liverpool, we believe that locals as well as visitors to the city will engage with a distinctive experience of this city that counteracts the bland 'internationalism' that is making all cities look and feel alike."

Peter Mearns, Director of Marketing at the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), one of the event's principle sponsors, said "The Northwest is one of the most artistic and culturally dynamic regions in Europe and through bringing together artists from around the world in a celebration of innovative visual culture, the Liverpool Biennial really highlights the region's world class cultural offering. The Biennial plays an important role in showcasing both Liverpool and England's Northwest to the UK and overseas and this year's event in particular will be crucial in promoting Liverpool's vibrant cultural scene as the city gears up for its Capital of Culture year in 2008. The NWDA is pleased to once again provide its support as part of our strategy to improve the profile and image of the Northwest through major, world class cultural, sporting and business events."

Councillor Warren Bradley, Leader of Liverpool City Council, said: ''The growth of Liverpool Biennial into one of the world's great arts festivals is a huge boost for our preparations as European Capital of Culture. It has helped push the boundaries in how the city can act as a stage and canvas and in turn it has transformed how we view the role of art and artists. Every Biennial has challenged the city and all those who experience it and long may that continue. One only has to look at its international profile, its role in the creation of a new independent quarter and the number of home grown artists that participate to see that the Biennial will benefit the city for many years to come.''

In 2006 the Biennial is shaped by the rapid development of Liverpool's centre, as this 'city in transition' gears up to its position as European Capital of Culture 2008. It includes these core programmes:


Urban myths and the bittersweet success of regeneration are strong focal points in the International 06 exhibition. Inspired by Liverpool's people, history and built environment, the exhibition promises 35 new commissions, half of which will be sited in the public realm, by some of the most current artists from across the world - a uniquely crafted 'total experience' of new art in a specific cultural context. The personality of the exhibition will be as lively, diverse and quick-witted as Liverpool itself. It will be an extraordinary opportunity to see art engaging with global issues through the specifics of its cultural context.

John Moores 24 Exhibition of Contemporary Painting is the UK's most prestigious and longest-running national open painting competition. Organised by National Museums Liverpool and supported by the John Moores Exhibition Trust and A Foundation, the exhibition has been hosted by The Walker since 1957. Celebrating the vitality of contemporary British painting, it is open to artists living and working in the UK and offers a first prize of £25,000. This year's jury consists of artists Sir Peter Blake and Tracey Emin with former John Moores prizewinner Jason Brooks, curator Ann Bukantas and Director of Visual Art at the British Council, Andrea Rose.

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2006 is the annual exhibition by students and recent graduates of Fine Art colleges throughout the UK. Established in 1949, New Contemporaries is recognised for supporting new work and artists at the start of their professional careers. The selectors are artists Alison Wilding, Angus Fairhurst and Paul Noble. Bloomberg New Contemporaries takes place at Greenland Street, Liverpool's major new contemporary art centre run by A Foundation which launches with exhibitions, events and screenings during the Biennial.

In addition, there will be a penumbra of smaller scale exhibitions, some of them organised elsewhere and making use of the Biennial as an international platform, some organised specifically by local and regional artists through Independents Biennial in order to play their part in the exchange of shows and studio facilities that characterises artistic practice today. This fringe adds a unique dimension to Liverpool Biennial, contributing energy and unpredictability to the pervasive and contagious buzz already created in the city.

Liverpool Biennial's 2006 programme is delivered in association with The Walker (National Museums Liverpool), New Contemporaries, as well as smaller city centre galleries and alternative spaces. International 06 partners include Tate Liverpool, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), and Open Eye Gallery. The Bluecoat Arts Centre will be closed for development during the Biennial, but contribute through the Connect and Live Art programmes.

Source: Liverpool 08 (http://www.liverpool08.com/News/LiverpoolBiennial2006.asp)

Seems the Guardian always have to get their little dig at Liverpool in somewhere or other. :angry:

That's the Manchester Guardian for you. I couldn't be bothered clicking the link, but it smells of sour-faced David Ward.

David Ward - you got it in one.

Powerful - or merely appalling?
Sep 19 2006
By Sam Lister Daily Post Staff

THE Liverpool Biennial has always provoked a reaction with its eye-catching and outrageous exhibits, and this year is no exception.

The festival's contentious offering for 2006 is a piece by a Mexican artist that drips water used to wash dead bodies after post mortem examinations on to a hotplate.

As the droplets sizzle when they hit the heated metal, which represents the pathologist's examination table, they release a pungent smell for visitors to inhale.

Created by Teresa Margolles, the piece was inspired by the rituals that surround death, which she refers to as "the life of the corpse" and uses water imported from a morgue where her studio is based.

But last night Rev Harry Ross, from St Luke's church, in Walton, branded the work "appalling".

More (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=17778049%26method=full%26siteid=50061% 26headline=powerful%2d%2d%2dor%2dmerely%2dappallin g%2d-name_page.html)...

What a turn-up

A sprawling but often inspiring collection has emerged from the beleaguered biennial team in Liverpool

Killian Fox
Sunday September 24, 2006
The Observer (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

Liverpool Biennial
Various venues, until 26 Nov

All systems are go in Liverpool. Next year the city celebrates its 800th birthday; in 2008 it will be the European Capital of Culture, alongside Stavanger in Norway. In preparation, hard hats and luminous jackets have colonised vast, razed areas of the city centre while, overhead, cranes stand out like rough sketches of a brand new skyline. With so much change under way, it's no surprise that loss is a key concern at this year's biennial, Liverpool's fourth - and now Britain's largest - festival of contemporary visual art.

If the mood within the host galleries and around the numerous public exhibits is not exactly elegiac, there is a strong awareness of an old way of life in its death throes. Obscure Moorings, Matthew Buckingham's Melville-inspired video at Fact, follows a retired seaman along his morose circuit of the city, from docks to pub to night-job to bed, while down the road at the Open Eye Gallery, Lisa Oppenheim pays tribute to Merseyside's many lost structures. The trick Oppenheim pulls is clever yet inherently frustrating: the description of an image is projected on to one side of a screen while the actual photograph is shown on the other side. By the time you get around to view each image - an example of fallen architecture - it has already been supplanted by new text.

The artists in International 06, the headlining section of the biennial, were encouraged to spend time in Liverpool before setting their commissions in motion, and while coherence is not necessarily a bad thing for a show of this scale, there is a lurking danger of repetition and homogeneity. Witness the preoccupation with urban renewal and the repeated use of street maps and aerial photos. At moments, the line between art and town planning becomes worryingly thin. Even the video projection sending up a city orientation guide, Liverpool Top 9!! by Taiwan's Tsui Kuang-Yu, suffers by association - momentarily amusing, it plays out like a second-rate TV sketch show and shouldn't really be taking up a whole room at the Tate.

The better reflections on the city and its past are those which are less direct. Also at the Tate, eccentric Japanese artist Shimabuku speculates on the first meeting of fish and chips by placing a potato in the sea and filming it as it falls through shoals of curious vertebrates, warning them of their greasy fate. The result is at once funny and hypnotic.

Slovenian Matej Andraz Vogrincic has filled St Luke's, known locally as 'the bombed-out church', with a congregation of upturned rowing boats painted in uniform green. Viewed from a raised walkway, it's a beautifully arresting work that contemplates tradition, migration and change while exploiting the etymological link between these boats and the church's nave.

Some of the best exhibits have little or nothing to do with their host city. Thai film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has set two videos looping in a darkened gallery at Fact. Each shows an astronaut suspended inside a sleekly futuristic spaceship. A pervasive ambient fuzz is punctured by occasional ominous bleeps. A cosmic sun rises and sets, flitting across the impassive faces of the spacemen. Not much happens, but every tiniest event - the removal of a helmet, an upward step into zero gravity - is somehow charged with the most terrific tension. It's a mesmerising installation and I sat through its 15-minute duration twice.

Little in the way of serious provocation is going on this year, and the nearest thing to controversy seems to be Teresa Margolles's hot surface at the Tate, which vaporises drops of water once used to wash the corpses of murder victims at a Mexico City morgue. The air around it, one supposes, is literally dead, and the eeriness is compounded by the disembodied voices of Julianne Swartz's Nauman-esque Affirmation whispering away nearby. Margolles's work conjures up images so vivid that her invisible corpses command a grisly presence.

There is much more to see. The Bloomsbury New Contemporaries are on display at the spacious new Coach Shed gallery on Greenland Street. The John Moores 24, a mixed bag of contemporary British paintings selected by Peter Blake, Jason Brookes and Tracey Emin, can be found at the Walker, and outdoor exhibits include the Portuguese artist-activist Rigo's caging of the imperious stone lions on St George's Plateau. The bars are there to keep the lions in; a set of ugly railings around Priscilla Monge's bumpy football pitch installation next to the Chambers of Commerce are intended to keep the public out, but they make an eyesore of an interesting piece. It's a perplexing slip-up in the otherwise well curated Public Realm.

Sprawling art festivals such as this are by nature hit and miss, d*mned if they impose overarching themes, d*mned if they don't. But the Biennial's organisers have cut a reasonable balance and an impressive body of work has been amassed, with a particular emphasis on young Asian and Latin American artists. The next couple of years will pose significant challenges to the city and there will be an obligation for 2008's event to be bigger and better still. After this summer's shock resignation of culture director Robyn Archer, Liverpool appears to be back on track.

Source: The Observer | Review (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1879526,00.html)

Sprawling art festivals such as this are by nature hit and miss, d*mned if they impose overarching themes, d*mned if they don't. But the Biennial's organisers have cut a reasonable balance and an impressive body of work has been amassed, with a particular emphasis on young Asian and Latin American artists. The next couple of years will pose significant challenges to the city and there will be an obligation for 2008's event to be bigger and better still. After this summer's shock resignation of culture director Robyn Archer, Liverpool appears to be back on track.

Source: The Observer | Review (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1879526,00.html)

:PDT_Piratz_26:

Pub turns inside out for art show

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42672000/jpg/_42672117_crosskeyspub_203b.jpg
Biennial organisers want to create a memorable work of art


A Merseyside pub is being turned inside out as part of a piece of sculpture for the Liverpool biennial celebrations.

Sculptor Richard Wilson will cut an 8m (26ft) wide and three storey high section from a former Yates Wine Lodge in Moorfields and set it on a pivot.

Passers-by will be able to glimpse inside the Cross Keys House and look at the rooms as it spins round.

The work, called Turning The Place Over, will be unveiled in May and will run throughout capital of culture year.

Liverpool Biennial, the public art body which co-commissioned the piece, promised the work would be a spectacle.

Director Lewis Biggs said: "Turning the Place Over will be remembered and celebrated for as long as people's jaws are capable of dropping."

source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6443313.stm)....

Yes, heard about that on the news, that'll be interesting to see!

THE fourth Liverpool Biennial festival attracted a record-breaking number of visitors, it was revealed last night. more (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/liverpooldailypost/news/regionalnews/tm_headline=biennial-proves-a-record%2Dbreaker%26method=full%26objectid=18745863 %26siteid=50061-name_page.html)

WHAT is sure to be one of the most talked-about commissions of the Capital of Culture year is taking shape – the shape of an ovoid, to be precise.

A major project that will turn a derelict city bar into an awe-inspiring work of art has reached the most dramatic stage of its installation.

Turning the Place Over, by London artist Richard Wilson, has been described as “the jewel in the crown of the Culture Company’s public arts programme” and “the most daring piece of public art ever commissioned in the UK”.

A large egg-shaped, or ovoid, section from the former Yates's Wine Lodge, in Moorfields, was craned in yesterday and will be specially pivoted across several storeys of the building to oscillate in three directions.

The revolving facade rests on a specially-designed giant rotator, acting as a huge opening and closing “window” offering glimpses of the interior during its constant cycle during daylight hours. continues (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/liverpooldailypost/news/regionalnews/tm_headline=turning-the-place-over-exposes-daring-art-%2D%2D8216%2Djewel%2D%2D8217%2D%26method=full%26ob jectid=18915127%26page=1%26siteid=50061-name_page.html)....

08 Biennial set to bring in 500,000 city visitors

Oct 30 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL’S Biennial art festival brought over £13.5m to the city last year according to a new report, and organisers say next year’s festival will attract over 500,000 people.

89% of visitors to the 2006 contemporary art event, which featured exhibits showcased at venues all over the city, rated their visit as very good or good, but many struggled to find the attractions because of poor signage and guides, the report and survey from The Mersey Partnership (TMP) reveals.

It concludes the least popular exhibits were a giant question mark hung over Cammell Laird by artist Hans Peter Kuhn, and Priscilla Monge’s football pitch installation, which lay beside the Port of Liverpool building.

St Luke’s Church, at the top of Bold Street and FACT received the highest scores for visitor satisfaction at their exhibits in the survey, although FACT’s score was lower than in 2004’s Biennial.

Martin King, director of tourism at TMP said: “The research underlines the huge benefits associated with Liverpool Biennial 2006, and it reveals the very significant impact the event created for our visitor economy.

“Another value of market research like this, and assessing the views and experiences of our visitors, is in identifying how things can be improved and gauging critical or less than positive feedback.

“Respondents in the survey indicated very high levels of satisfaction, but there were some issues about signposting and I am sure they will be addressed when we welcome visitors to the Biennial next year.”

The report estimates 2006 Biennial patrons spent £13,563,006 during their time in the city, 24% more than during the 2004 festival.

It also shows respondents felt some of the less established exhibitions, including the Open Eye Gallery on Wood Street, Fusebox on Parr Street – which featured books and articles on Biennial artists – and the Coach Shed installation at Greenland Street gallery had improved from their showing in 2004, whilst Tate Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery received lower scores compared to the previous festival.

Liverpool Biennial executive director Paul Smith said: “We are on target to attract upwards of 500,000 visitors to the 2008 festival.

“We are aiming to capitalise on the opportunities and increased profile gained through Capital of Culture to develop the festival as a legacy in 2010 and beyond.”

Warren Bradley, leader of Liverpool City Council, a partner in the festival, added: “We knew when we introduced the festival it would bring visual arts onto the doorstep of Liverpool and the feedback shows it is not just tourists but local people enjoying the exhibits.

“It bodes well for next year’s fes- tival as part of Capital of Culture – who would have thought five years ago we would have achieved this?

“As for the signage issues in the report, we will be picking that up and making sure there is ease of access next year”.

Liverpool's fifth International Festival of Contemporary Art.

Exploding onto the city’s streets and into its major art galleries, the 2008 festival will feature even more new commissions and will include the 50th anniversary of the John Moores exhibition of contemporary painting at the Walker Art Gallery.

20/9/2008 - 30/11/2008