Touched

Liverpool Biennial International Exhibition 2010

Liverpool Biennial presents Touched, the International 10 exhibition as part of Liverpool Biennial 2010

18 September - 28 November 2010

“In a world packed with countless biennials, triennials and the rest, this madcap event in Liverpool remains distinctive and entertaining. The shows are scattered all over the city, often in pretty strange places, but the overall ambition — to introduce British audiences to up-and-coming international artists and trends — is adhered to excellently." The Times

For a simple downloadable list of the artists in Touched, please click here.

“Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”¹

Touched presents artworks that affect the viewer through addressing a total context (mind, body and place: relatedness in space and time); artworks whose investment and inscription in the particular and the personal affects the general and the social.

As with the last five International exhibitions for Liverpool Biennial, Touched will consist of newly commissioned artworks made with sensitivity to the specifics of the place, time and audience of the exhibition, while originating in the artists’ preoccupations with the state of the world and with their own personal obsessions. This is articulated in the concept of ‘emplacement’, expanding the more common idea of embodiment. “While the paradigm of ‘embodiment’ implies an integration of mind and body, the emergent paradigm of ‘emplacement’ suggests the sensuous interrelationship of body-mind-environment.”²

While the word Touched suggests the contiguity and bodily presence that is involved in emplacement, it equally conjures the dynamic of affectivity in which the viewer is presented (brought to the present moment) with the artwork equally through the senses, intellect and emotions. This quality of presence starts with affect. Once our emotions are engaged, the resultant disruption to our senses and thought processes makes change possible in our intellectual perspective, behaviour and relation to the world.

This is not to conflate difference. According to Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his unfinished The Visible and the Invisible, the apparent divergence between mind and body, subject and object, self and other is a necessary condition for the constitution of subjectivity. And that is the same difference as exists between touching and being touched, between looking and being looked at, or between the sentient and the sensible.

Both in physical and emotional terms, touched and touching are not simply ‘separate orders of being in the world’, but reversible conditions, coexisting in constant oscillation as in his famous example of one hand touching the other. Perhaps crucially The Visible and the Invisible is an exercise to leave questioning open, not to reconstitute the subject apart from the object, the other, but to exist in and experience the ontological ambiguity of the ‘flesh’ as both object and subject, body and world, art and city.

Can art touch a city?

1. Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag, 1966.
2. Empire of the Senses, The Sensual Culture Reader, edited by David Howes, published Berg 2005 p. 7

"wouldn't it have been better changing radically the usual title of Intenational?? Made Up in 2008, Touched in 2010...what a creativity:-((("

Alex, 07/10/2009
"spelly dancer..."

badstyle, 27/01/2010
"This year is actually only the second year the show has really had a title at all. I've had a sneak preview of the list of artists the curatorial team are talking to and I think the show will speak for itself - you can expect a facinating variety of angles on the theme."

Sean, 19/10/2009
"Hi Monic and any other potential volunteers. Please email mary@biennial.com with your request"

Biennial Team, 27/04/2010
""Can art touch a city?" Maybe if the city can touch the art..."

HA, 23/06/2010
"Where can I find a complete run-down of events, especially one-offs so I can decide the best time to come? Will be travelling from London and want to get hotel booked early before they get too expensive. thanks. "

northerner in exile, 27/06/2010
"Art touches every city unwillingly. It's great to see popular locations outside London showcasing inspiration."

MRmark, 27/07/2010
"Touched! We love the idea and are looking forward to touching the art in more ways than one! Keep an eye out for the 'Up & Coming' exhibition at Domino Gallery, Liverpool."

Up & Coming Arts Team, 01/08/2010
"Yes art can touch you. Liverpools hugely successfull period of european capital of culture touched a nerve in the citys psyche. Culture and art could be anything anywhere and could be for anyone and everyone. I was caught up by the whole positivity of inclusion through art as were many thousands of others. Whether it was lamb banana spotting. spider interacting or assisting in the peoples Liverpool Ben Johnson cityscape or just being part of the buzz at the launch or closure or a youngster getting a spark from the art it was all brilliantly positive. Art can stir self esteem, civic pride and can enhance well being. Tracy Emmens simple message in liverpool Cathedral is meaningful and moving but in different ways for different people.
"

RB, 23/09/2009
"Cant wait for more news ..."

DRD, 20/10/2009
"Was so caught up in MADE 2008! So many visits and so many wonderful experiences especially in the "Long Night" can't wait until next September just eleven little months to go!"

Roger, 27/10/2009
"Volunteering for Liverpool Biennial in 2008 made the difference to me. It all happened a year ago but it was such a unique and fulfilling experience in so many ways that I still feel like it was yesterday. All I wish for is I'll be back in time for the next festival..."

Gio, 01/11/2009
"It's spelled Tracey Emin, by the way"

Mrs Spelworthy, 16/11/2009
"I love you Mrs Spelworthy"

anon, 16/11/2009
"'spelt' perhaps though?"

also anon, 11/12/2009
"How can I volunteer in Liverpool Biennial? Can someone give me a hint?"

Monic, 24/04/2010
"That's a good question - the answer is it's in the process of being pulled together, and will be on the site in the next couple of weeks!

Hope that helps!"

Biennial, 28/06/2010
"I'm really looking forward to "Touched"! Will there be a big opening ceremony on the first day? "

liverpooldoc.wordpress.com, 01/07/2010
"I crept in to find our father with pennies on his eyes - and looking closer I saw they were made of foil-covered chocolate. Of course I stole and ate them. Magical guilt? Tell me about it... touched by the hand..."

Rod Avlas PANDÆMON¥AOM, 16/07/2010
"Walking through Liverpool city centre over the last few weeks, it's clear that art has touched the city in a unique and positive way.

When I walk through my home town of Manchester there is less evidence of art's impact, more commercial regeneration - see Spinningfields development.

I am looking forward to joining you for 'Touched'!"

rob, 29/07/2010

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