Is anyone ready to save the Planet?

May 19 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

Mersey Bar Lightship Planet moored in Canning Dock _320

A centre for art

IF THE St Paul’s Trust plan to save Planet is realised, present owner Gary McClarnan, who is an enthusiast for public art, hopes that Liverpool Biennial could be involved.

He thinks Liverpool Biennial could use Planet for art exhibitions and its director, Lewis Biggs, welcomes the idea.

Liverpool Biennial is best known as the promoter and organiser of the UK’s international festival of contemporary art every second year (including 2008), commissioning public art like Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over and Antony Gormley’s Another Place statues at Crosby Beach.

Biggs says: “I am very enthusiastic that Planet should stay. It would be terrible if such a historic feature of Canning Dock should go from Liverpool.

“We're working to capacity for 2008, but I reminded Gary McClarnan that, in former years, our Biennial festivals' independent artists have made use of exciting spaces for displays.

“One year, the preserved Birkenhead submarine, HMS Onyx, was used as an exhibition area, so there is a precedence for artists who could use Planet.”

In an earlier bizarre turn, Liverpool Tate Gallery commissioned a full-sized replica of Planet’s light-tower called The Real Thing, which was placed outside its Albert Dock premises.