Celebrations to mark Tate Liverpool’s 20th birthday

Apr 29 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

Tate Liverpool gallery, Albert Dock 03 _320

THE Tate Liverpool – celebrating its 20th birthday – is not allowing the anniversary to go by unnoticed.

They have programmed a whole series of birthday events for this coming Bank Holiday weekend, to include guided tours by comedians, just for starters.

Artist Graham Marsden will be in gallery at 1.30pm for three days from Saturday building a maze of dens and asking visitors, young and old, to help create them.

The art group Shoot Experience returns following a successful visit last year in which they will be hold-ing a photographic treasure hunt on Saturday and Sunday.

Contestants will be given clues for the photographic treasure hunt through Liverpool and around the Albert Dock. The theme each day is Senses and Sounds and partici-pants will take digital photos of the answers before ending at Tate Liverpool. There will be a prize of an Olympus camera and selected photos will be exhibited at Tate Liverpool later in the month.

The event Shoot Liverpool last year sold out. Tickets this year are £12 (concessions £10).

Artists who have exhibited at the gallery over the last 20 years are returning to talk about the exper-ience of exhibiting in Liverpool and the impact on their careers.

On Saturday, Portuguese-born, British-based artist Paula Rego will be talking about her career with Lewis Biggs, director of the Liver-pool Biennial and former director of the Tate Liverpool.

On Monday American-born, London-based artist Susan Hiller, who finds hidden meanings in everyday objects, will be talking to the Tate Liverpool’s director Chris-toph Grunenberg. They start at 2pm,and cost £10 (concessions £8).

The Liverpool a cappella choir Sense of Sound – part of the recent Royal Variety Show at the Liver-pool Empire – will be singing birth-day tunes with a modern twist in the gallery on Saturday between 4pm-8pm in a free performance.

Between between 7pm-11pm, the Tate Liverpool will hold its own Northern Soul dance night with a line-up of well-known soul DJs including Phil Saxe, Ste Hodge and DJs from the Manchester club Vertigo among others. A film, Long After Midnight, is about a North-ern Soul reunion by award-winning artist Matt Stokes, which will play in the background while revellers dance to the beat.

At 1pm poet and story-teller John Hughes will be reciting his interac-tive poems in the gallery. and there will be a lantern-making workshop between 2pm and 5pm to which people can drop in. The lanterns will be later used for an evening parade at the Albert Dock.

A Big Family Album displays the reminiscences of Merseyside children over the last 20 years.

* BOOKING number, 0151 702 7400.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk