https://mikepinnington.cargo.site Mike Pinnington Mon, 20 Jan 2025 17:41:09 +0000 https://mikepinnington.cargo.site en https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Homepage Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:01:23 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Homepage Mike Pinnington Writer | Art Critic | Lecturer | PhD Candidate&nbsp; Art | Class | Popular Culture &nbsp;mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk | +44(0)7972528942 | Based in Liverpool, UK // News ︎︎︎ Speaker: Conference on Working-Classness as Method in Creative Practice. 10 April 2026: more here&nbsp; // Selected Publishing <img width="1608" height="2560" width_o="1608" height_o="2560" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/014ecd04a0fe98255834f4b28a8590b7d2a58b9248e3a53fad82b24b2124a3fa/Mostyn_Neon_Light_081022-15-scaled.jpg" data-mid="225141389" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/014ecd04a0fe98255834f4b28a8590b7d2a58b9248e3a53fad82b24b2124a3fa/Mostyn_Neon_Light_081022-15-scaled.jpg" /> Cerith Wyn Evans Has an Eye on Duchamp (ArtReview) <img width="640" height="419" width_o="640" height_o="419" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e6ed74f89109587d34ca63c4afed1f1e4b07d3c6b2f617f131861e7183d5b250/thegreatdayofhiswrath_JohnMartn-640x419.jpg" data-mid="225148224" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/e6ed74f89109587d34ca63c4afed1f1e4b07d3c6b2f617f131861e7183d5b250/thegreatdayofhiswrath_JohnMartn-640x419.jpg" /> Thy Race is Run – Apocalypse Now? (The Double Negative) <img width="980" height="653" width_o="980" height_o="653" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f44e99a9cbcd585a549b52c5594befecae35eccb1b7e1f378762c5a8ca3468c5/angharad-williams-web.jpg" data-mid="146747364" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/980/i/f44e99a9cbcd585a549b52c5594befecae35eccb1b7e1f378762c5a8ca3468c5/angharad-williams-web.jpg" />Angharad Williams: Picture The Others, Mostyn Gallery (Art Monthly) <img width="531" height="730" width_o="531" height_o="730" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9bb8662f917cd50a2868bb9663b514a159f3e19e39a89f85d0285114e8cb575e/sciencefictionstarchart2-dorothy-web.jpg" data-mid="146746720" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/531/i/9bb8662f917cd50a2868bb9663b514a159f3e19e39a89f85d0285114e8cb575e/sciencefictionstarchart2-dorothy-web.jpg" /> The Stars Our Destination? Science Fiction and why it matters (Dorothy) <img width="531" height="730" width_o="531" height_o="730" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/95799ff038fd6265a4f718f023f625216b96cf298b0a0c9e2a977d09e300e00e/claude-cahun-radicallandscapes-tate.jpg" data-mid="146745850" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/531/i/95799ff038fd6265a4f718f023f625216b96cf298b0a0c9e2a977d09e300e00e/claude-cahun-radicallandscapes-tate.jpg" /> Radical Landscapes, Tate Liverpool (Art Monthly) <img width="491" height="708" width_o="491" height_o="708" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ca8bb49e915842c6f1ca028a1c945b0b81a18937c37393c1504b30c74442e7d1/DoraGarcia-imaginedmuseum.jpeg" data-mid="170292662" border="0" data-scale="95" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/491/i/ca8bb49e915842c6f1ca028a1c945b0b81a18937c37393c1504b30c74442e7d1/DoraGarcia-imaginedmuseum.jpeg" />Imagining Disaster: Science Fiction X Contemporary Art (Open Eye) <img width="980" height="653" width_o="980" height_o="653" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/74f56edaf4176dbe2cc3762903b7aee0da7fd7a8e13e086dcbe03365af9a8281/Franka_main.jpg" data-mid="146747097" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/980/i/74f56edaf4176dbe2cc3762903b7aee0da7fd7a8e13e086dcbe03365af9a8281/Franka_main.jpg" /> The Big Interview: Franka Potente (The Double Negative) <img width="980" height="653" width_o="980" height_o="653" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cd98328ad9b061ee2166686d31271889364b5aef2d5ade7dc610ffcafa708a11/millie-detail-web.jpg" data-mid="146751699" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/980/i/cd98328ad9b061ee2166686d31271889364b5aef2d5ade7dc610ffcafa708a11/millie-detail-web.jpg" />A City Of and For Painters: Refractive Pool (National Museums Liverpool) <img width="1162" height="1962" width_o="1162" height_o="1962" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/885a91adc66ce296b76ef2ce151e1185cfccbc9ada679e84cde200385d0d75f5/moon-jeon-book.jpeg" data-mid="170295341" border="0" data-scale="81" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/885a91adc66ce296b76ef2ce151e1185cfccbc9ada679e84cde200385d0d75f5/moon-jeon-book.jpeg" />More Selected Publishing // Experience <img width="400" height="400" width_o="400" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4292bc7316946f44570689f7f87e14b45b165c8a77471fd0f79847703d50d1f3/Tate_001_Logo-400x400.jpg" data-mid="170287428" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/400/i/4292bc7316946f44570689f7f87e14b45b165c8a77471fd0f79847703d50d1f3/Tate_001_Logo-400x400.jpg" />Interpretation | Editorial | Communication | Publishing <img width="400" height="400" width_o="400" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/510619613b774da7b107be00ad33c68efef1c53d39205c2fdb1fe555e389ea3f/TDN_400x400.jpg" data-mid="170287544" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/400/i/510619613b774da7b107be00ad33c68efef1c53d39205c2fdb1fe555e389ea3f/TDN_400x400.jpg" />Criticism | Editorial | Commisioning | Publishing <img width="400" height="400" width_o="400" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0a6dfdfb3522ec2ee6c0923418912842b612a230485028c9374a6b3f0a811ba5/open-eye-logo.jpeg" data-mid="170287025" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/400/i/0a6dfdfb3522ec2ee6c0923418912842b612a230485028c9374a6b3f0a811ba5/open-eye-logo.jpeg" />Commissioning | Programming | Research // Kind Words <img width="784" height="343" width_o="784" height_o="343" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e6967812abd05074318b51fbb3fc164b6c8035821f7a7f0797d01b1f840167ab/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.47.22.png" data-mid="170289505" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/784/i/e6967812abd05074318b51fbb3fc164b6c8035821f7a7f0797d01b1f840167ab/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.47.22.png" /> <img width="783" height="319" width_o="783" height_o="319" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dd6044ec7c6bfc278b2f53bd6ce1c684b23956f2948c04cfe93af4590193d22f/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.48.27.png" data-mid="170289525" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/783/i/dd6044ec7c6bfc278b2f53bd6ce1c684b23956f2948c04cfe93af4590193d22f/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.48.27.png" /> <img width="783" height="342" width_o="783" height_o="342" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bab5f8c34650ff03975db8a9cbfc994e0b37ade8f336588ab1f5508ff7f08f9e/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.49.50.png" data-mid="170289889" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/783/i/bab5f8c34650ff03975db8a9cbfc994e0b37ade8f336588ab1f5508ff7f08f9e/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.49.50.png" /> <img width="783" height="296" width_o="783" height_o="296" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b3d2d62563b568ad5c6755c60c447d1fce60bab869343a66ced023ab7d63fa3/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.51.13.png" data-mid="170290002" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/783/i/8b3d2d62563b568ad5c6755c60c447d1fce60bab869343a66ced023ab7d63fa3/Screen-Shot-2023-03-02-at-12.51.13.png" /> // Work With Me mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk | +44(0)7972528942 https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/About-Contact Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:01:21 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/About-Contact About &amp; Contact Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk&nbsp; Call: +44(0)7972528942 Based in Liverpool, UK Mike Pinnington is a widely-published writer, experienced editor and lecturer based in Liverpool, specialising in art criticism and exhibition interpretation.&nbsp;For more than fifteen years, Mike has been writing about visual art, film, class, science fiction, and popular culture for a variety of international platforms and publications. These include (but aren’t limited to) Art Monthly, Art Quarterly, Art Review, Ocula, Tate Online, Garageland Magazine, Elephant, byNWR, MUBI Notebook, the Art Newspaper, Art et al. and Corridor8. He has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 Front Row. He is Co-founder and Editor of The Double Negative, an online platform for Arts Criticism &amp; Cultural Commentary based in the city of Liverpool and established in 2011. He is currently a PhD candidate addressing the question: Writing the City: how can one critique, reflect and rethink the cultural landscape of a place? A PhD by Published Works, it is a critical reflection on his substantial writing portfolio and engagement with Liverpool’s visual culture.In 2019, Mike was co-editor of Present Tense, a non-fiction book addressing the decade following Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture award, funded by Arts Council England and Kickstarter. Between 2013 and 2018 he was employed by Tate Liverpool as Content Editor, working across the Exhibitions and Visitor &amp; Audiences teams, producing gallery interpretation, exhibition catalogues and guides, online content and more. He has worked with Manchester Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Salford Art Collection, The Lowry, The Bluecoat, Arts Development Company, Finnish Art Agency, Finnish Painters and others; advising on interpretation methods and writing for audiences, and delivering talks, lectures, tutorials and workshops on art, culture, writing, editing and communication. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;He was born in Rainhill, Merseyside, and lives in Liverpool. ︎︎︎ thedoublenegative.co.uk ︎︎︎ bluesky @doublenegativem ︎︎︎ instagram @doublenegativem https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Selected-Publishing Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:32:07 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Selected-Publishing <img width="980" height="652" width_o="980" height_o="652" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c62a325dfdf63b345daa3c352515707163e2fff0e8fb088e88b3490e225a769f/present-tense-shop-image-slider.jpg" data-mid="170294178" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/980/i/c62a325dfdf63b345daa3c352515707163e2fff0e8fb088e88b3490e225a769f/present-tense-shop-image-slider.jpg" /><img width="1162" height="1962" width_o="1162" height_o="1962" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/885a91adc66ce296b76ef2ce151e1185cfccbc9ada679e84cde200385d0d75f5/moon-jeon-book.jpeg" data-mid="170294216" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/885a91adc66ce296b76ef2ce151e1185cfccbc9ada679e84cde200385d0d75f5/moon-jeon-book.jpeg" /><img width="460" height="627" width_o="460" height_o="627" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/148d564a265af1fe291cd319e9b0b9117e820c9a1ee026f46a52d48e14023bab/thedesignist1.jpg" data-mid="224234371" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/460/i/148d564a265af1fe291cd319e9b0b9117e820c9a1ee026f46a52d48e14023bab/thedesignist1.jpg" /><img width="460" height="627" width_o="460" height_o="627" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02bbba25732a5cc3a91ee8fd946d5eef5f08f4f2846c1e19a7804dd7edc71699/thedesignist2.jpg" data-mid="224234373" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/460/i/02bbba25732a5cc3a91ee8fd946d5eef5f08f4f2846c1e19a7804dd7edc71699/thedesignist2.jpg" /> Selected Publishing Books Present Tense: A decade since Liverpool EU Capital of Culture… What now? 2019. Commissioner, co-editor, contributor. Paperback, 96 pages. Designed by Mike Carney. Published by The Double Negative. ISBN 9781527242814.For a city famous for punching above its weight, a book with a reach far beyond its 100 pages: Present Tense is a purposeful collection of voices that care... about Liverpool, about art, and about cities of culture everywhere.– Mark Sheerin, freelance arts writer (Hyperallergic, The Arts Desk) NEWS FROM NOWHERE: TATE Liverpool, 2019.&nbsp; Written by Tamar Hemmas, Mike Pinnington, Moon Kyungwon &amp; Jeon Joonh. Hardcover, 111 pages. Catalogue Designed by Workroom Press. Printed by In-time printing. Published 2019 by Workroom Press on the occasion of the exhibition at Tate Liverpool, 22 Nov.2018-17 Mar.2019. ISBN 979-11-89356-12-5 03600. The Designist: Liverpool's Must-see for the Design Obsessed, 2012. Co-editor, co-author. Paperback, 64 pages with fold-out map. Designed and printed by Smiling Wolf Press. ISBN 9780956099921. Like to work with me?Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk Call: +44(0)7972528942︎︎︎ thedoublenegative.co.uk ︎︎︎ bluesky @doublenegativem ︎︎︎ instagram @doublenegativem https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Kind-Words Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:53:34 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Kind-Words Kind WordsTestimonials from collaborators&nbsp; I've had the pleasure of (working with and) having Mike write about my work over the years and have always appreciated his ability to talk about the real-life issues that relate to art and class. He has an astute approach to talking directly without coming off didactic. He has a way with words where you feel like your time dedicated to the writing respects your presence as you go on the journey with him. Larry Achiampong, Artist Mike and I have collaborated on various projects and the thought, consideration and care that goes into his work is always evident in the results. As co-founder of The Double Negative he transformed my idea of what a local critical platform could be – proactive and accessible, intelligent and multifaceted – and as a writer he is always worth reading. Oliver Basciano, Editor-at-Large, ArtReview / ArtReview Asia It has been my pleasure to work with Mike at Writing on the Wall. He has brought his creative expertise to various mentoring projects over the last 3 years, specifically working with unemployed Liverpool City Residents, who have faced barriers to employment and work in the arts sector. Mike has created and lead workshops that provide clear, practical advice for writers at various stages of their development. His professional, flexible and encouraging teaching style means that all our participants gain industry knowledge, writing skills and the confidence they need to take their next steps with their writing. Mike has also worked with us as an editor for a commissioned digital work, Next Chapter, this stands as another example of his excellence in his field. We are very grateful to him, for his time as a mentor and editor across our programmes. Amy Carrington, Senior Project Manager, Writing on the Wall I have great admiration for Mike, who I have commissioned as a writer on challenging first-person opinion pieces and reviews. He has explored topics ranging from class politics to pop culture within the context of contemporary art, bringing a lively and highly valuable voice to Elephant. He also does important work towards greater representation in the arts with The Double Negative, particularly in moving the conversation beyond the London bubble, which I frequently enjoy reading. His writing is always precise, personal and brimming with curiosity. Louise Benson, Deputy Editor, Elephant Magazine Mike Pinnington was recommended to me by a fellow artist when I was awarded funding from Arts Council England with a budget for a professional writer. I commissioned Mike to interview me and write it up as a Q and A, and to produce an introduction text panel for my exhibition. His easy manner, extensive knowledge and engagement with the work helped me relax into what, for me, was a new experience. I was delighted with the results, which were produced in a timely and professional way. I then commissioned Mike to write a further piece about my work to include in a relaunch of my own website. I have no hesitation in highly recommending Mike to other artists. Julie Cassels, Artist Having known Mike through his work with The Double Negative and collaborating with him on a number of quality written pieces during my time at RIBA, he seemed a natural choice for an interview series with business leaders within the cultural sector in Liverpool. Professional Liverpool have since undertaken two of these interviews, with the Chief Executives of Biennial and FACT, to great feedback from its members. As well as Mike’s written and editorial skills, the interview series has also benefitted from his strong connections and credibility in the cultural sector, which comes across clearly in each of the interviews. Andrew Ruffler, CEO, Professional Liverpool Mike taught an Interpretation workshop to our Fine Art, Design, Graphic Design and Art and Design History students. Mike engaged the students professionally, presented the material in an enthusiastic way and left room for discussion and debate. The student feedback was very positive, with requests to run similar workshops again. We are looking forward to working with Mike in the future. Kathrin Wagner, Senior Lecturer, Art History, Liverpool Hope University Mike has written exhibition reviews and previews, of varying length, for Art Quarterly magazine, on a freelance basis, since 2019. He has proved to be a versatile, accommodating, and reliable arts writer, able to fulfil a commission to sometimes very tight deadlines. Helen Sumpter, Editor, Art Quarterly Mike’s writing is open, honest and down-to-earth. The arts and culture sector is bombarded with big words, confusing jargon and elitist vocabulary. Mike’s voice cuts through all of that and makes culture accessible to everyone. It’s exactly what we need. It’s important that content is relatable, realistic and accessible, and Mike’s work ticks all those boxes. Jasmine O’Hare, Freelance Arts Marketing and Communications Like to work with me?Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk Call: +44(0)7972528942 ︎︎︎ thedoublenegative.co.uk ︎︎︎ bluesky @doublenegativem ︎︎︎ instagram @doublenegativem https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/News Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:39:44 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/News News <img width="592" height="176" width_o="592" height_o="176" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/28de561dd9b1c0c2c872f7796d04004e233265e6aa253b4d662625634d321277/Screenshot-2026-04-09-8.56.00-AM.png" data-mid="246997567" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/592/i/28de561dd9b1c0c2c872f7796d04004e233265e6aa253b4d662625634d321277/Screenshot-2026-04-09-8.56.00-AM.png" /> Speaker:&nbsp;Who Does Not Envy with Us Is Against Us: A Conference on Working-Classness as Method in Creative Practice10 April 2026 Everyman Theatre, Liverpool Free (booking esential)︎︎︎ more info here I’ll be speaking about cultural capital in the gallery, the intersections of class and accent, and the ways in which these things might manifest in the artworld.The conference: Working-classness as method is an approach that addresses working-class experience, values and modes of knowledge as generative forms of understanding that resist institutional authority and challenge dominant hierarchies. We feel this is an urgent subject, strongly held and socio-culturally opaque.The Working Class British Art Network was founded in 2020 to challenge the historic marginalisation of working-class artists by recognising their practices as essential to understanding contemporary British art. By enabling artists to lead conversations about class through their work, the network seeks to build a more equitable and representative arts sector. The network was supported by a British Art Network Research Group bursary. This conference is being co-convened by Beth Hughes and Maria Fusco. // <img width="1440" height="2160" width_o="1440" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/67e8206e83805b052c9589d638e3337fb76e5c93c24278486336e7213e76b113/20150922_MariaFusco_StudioRoRo-7499.width-1440.jpg" data-mid="224236144" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/67e8206e83805b052c9589d638e3337fb76e5c93c24278486336e7213e76b113/20150922_MariaFusco_StudioRoRo-7499.width-1440.jpg" />&nbsp; In conversation with Maria Fusco 28 February 2025 Tate Liverpool,&nbsp;Mann Island, Liverpool L3 1BP 6:30-8pm£7.50 / £5 for Members and Tate Collective As part of my research into class, I’ve invited the award-winning arts writer Maria Fusco to Liverpool for a reading from, and discussion of, her recent book on working-classness. Her new anthology, Who does not envy with us is against us (published by Broken Sleep Books, 2023) is a brilliant collection of essays about growing up working-class. Fusco is a Belfast-born writer based in Scotland, and Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee, with a PhD awarded from the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at The University of Edinburgh.&nbsp;In 2025, she will be a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, in the Centre for Visual Culture. Fusco has previously held posts at Goldsmiths College, University of Edinburgh and Northumbria University.She writes fiction, critical and theoretical texts, and for opera and film. The Happy Hypocrite journal of art writing, founded by Fusco and published by Book Works, ran for twelve issues (2008-21). Who does not envy with us is against us will be available to purchase during the event. ︎︎︎ Book tickets here: tate.org.uk︎︎︎ mariafusco.net Like to work with me?Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk Call: +44(0)7972528942︎︎︎ thedoublenegative.co.uk ︎︎︎ bluesky @doublenegativem ︎︎︎ instagram @doublenegativem https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/CV Thu, 13 Jun 2024 12:32:33 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/CV CV Mike Pinnington B. 1978, Merseyside, UK Email: mike@thedoublenegative.co.uk Call: +44(0)7972528942︎︎︎ thedoublenegative.co.uk ︎︎︎ bluesky @doublenegativem ︎︎︎ instagram @doublenegativem Mike Pinnington is a widely-published writer, experienced editor and lecturer based in Liverpool, specialising in art criticism and exhibition interpretation.SELECTED EDUCATION: 2025 – 26PhD by Publication, Liverpool John Moores University2008 – 09Print Journalism, National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), Liverpool Community College 1996 – 99BA (hons) Media and Cultural Studies (2:2), Liverpool John Moores University SELECTED EXPERIENCE:2011 – PresentCo-founder, Editor, The Double Negative magazine, Liverpool 2023 – Present Lecturer, Graphic Design &amp; Illustration, History of Art, Liverpool John Moores University 2024 Interpretation consultancy, Tate Liverpool, for exhibition You Get A Car [Everybody Gets a Car] Resolve Collective&nbsp; 2021 – 22 Lecturer, Graphic Arts Research Project, Graphic Design &amp; Illustration, Liverpool John Moores University 2021 Visiting Lecturer, Graphic Design &amp; Illustration, Liverpool John Moores University 2021 Mentor, Writing On The Wall festival and literature charity 2020 – 21 Visiting Lecturer, Art History, Liverpool Hope University 2019 – 20 Sessional lecturer in Fine Art and Curating / Art History and Curating, Manchester Metropolitan University2018 Co-Project Lead of The Double Negative Fellowship, 2018, an initiative involving the commissioning and mentoring of three early career writers based in the north-west2013 – 18 Content Editor, Tate Liverpool PUBLISHING: Ongoing: Various International Platforms and Publications: Freelance Art Critic. Selected freelance writing and criticism: ArtMonthly; Elephant Magazine; Art Quarterly; ArtReview, etc.&nbsp; 2019 Co-commissioning editor/co-editor Present Tense: A decade since Liverpool EU Capital of Culture… What now? A book of new essays on Liverpool’s past, present and future – featuring daring new voices from the North-West, alongside acclaimed writers from the art world.2012 Co-editor, writer The DesignistEditor, curator, and writer of a paperback design guide to Liverpool. Created as part of Designival: ‘the North’s biggest and most established design festival.’ https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Cerith-Wyn-Evans-Has-an-Eye-on-Duchamp Mon, 20 Jan 2025 17:41:09 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Cerith-Wyn-Evans-Has-an-Eye-on-Duchamp Cerith Wyn Evans Has an Eye on Duchamp Commissioned by ArtReview, October 2022 <img width="1608" height="2560" width_o="1608" height_o="2560" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/014ecd04a0fe98255834f4b28a8590b7d2a58b9248e3a53fad82b24b2124a3fa/Mostyn_Neon_Light_081022-15-scaled.jpg" data-mid="225141491" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/014ecd04a0fe98255834f4b28a8590b7d2a58b9248e3a53fad82b24b2124a3fa/Mostyn_Neon_Light_081022-15-scaled.jpg" /> Cerith Wyn Evans: ….)( The artist’s new show at Mostyn, Llandudno embraces serendipities that reflect on the world and create spaces in which we may consider it In this homecoming of sorts, the Llanelli-born Cerith Wyn Evans has been given free rein, his work occupying all of Mostyn’s available spaces. Those familiar with his work – addressing language and perception through sculpture, photography, film and text – will expect the largescale neon pieces for which he is best known and the tall led columns, here suspended to hover neatly above the floor. Anticipation and encounter are rarely the same. These sculptures dominate your visual field; their impact matched by their intricacy. One such piece is reflected in another work some will hear before they see. The glass panels of Pli S=E=L=O=N Pli (2020) have been transformed into speakers, from which a piano composition (performed by Wyn Evans) is heard. The aural effect verges on white noise; like trying to tune the sweet spot of a local radio station, forever dipping in and out of the ether. When Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–23) was damaged in transit, he embraced the work’s chance ‘completion’. Wyn Evans channels this in the three “phase shifts (after David Tudor)” (all 2020) – a trio of transparent mobiles made from cracked windscreens moving in the air currents of the building. I’m not sure casual visitors’ minds will leap to the Duchampian as much as they do automobile accidents, but its effect resonates, adding yet another sensory layer. Upstairs is No realm of thought….variations after “Who’s sleeves”? (2022), a video shot on smartphone and presented on flatscreen. A plane is heard overhead; there are trills of birdsong. The sun casts weaving shadows of an old tape measure against a garden wall as water cascades mellifluously into the shot, catching the rattling tape measure; this quotidian vignette captures a bit of serendipitous backyard beauty. Wyn Evans has long communicated through such serendipities, visual or auditive, that reflect on the world and create spaces in which we may consider it. ‘Strategies of refraction’, he calls them. Here, those strategies are applied and tested at a gallery whose natural light will change according to time, affecting the nature of our interactions and experiences; and, perhaps, response. Something that Wyn Evans, forever with one eye on Duchamp, will no doubt be hoping for. Image credit: ….)(, 2022 (installation view). Photo: Jason Roberts. Courtesy the artist and Mostyn, Llandudno https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Angharad-Williams-Picture-The-Others-Mostyn-Gallery Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:01:20 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Angharad-Williams-Picture-The-Others-Mostyn-Gallery Angharad Williams: Picture The Others, Mostyn Gallery Commissioned for Art Monthly, No. 455, April 2022 <img width="980" height="653" width_o="980" height_o="653" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f44e99a9cbcd585a549b52c5594befecae35eccb1b7e1f378762c5a8ca3468c5/angharad-williams-web.jpg" data-mid="146747344" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/980/i/f44e99a9cbcd585a549b52c5594befecae35eccb1b7e1f378762c5a8ca3468c5/angharad-williams-web.jpg" /> <img width="2000" height="1333" width_o="2000" height_o="1333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/30bc25d3bf971dc898665630ab509426d76c92c1c6ef7441cdd11ffe3eae713f/11.-Mark-Blower-220221-Angharad-Williams-Mostyn-Gallery.jpg" data-mid="146746147" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/30bc25d3bf971dc898665630ab509426d76c92c1c6ef7441cdd11ffe3eae713f/11.-Mark-Blower-220221-Angharad-Williams-Mostyn-Gallery.jpg" /> Early on in Ben Wheatley’s Pandemic-set occult horror In The Earth (2021), two of the film’s central characters ponder the impacts of an unnamed lockdown-triggering virus: “Things will get back to normal quicker than you think; everyone will forget what happened,” one suggests. Her colleague, on the other hand, isn’t so sure: “No. I don’t think anyone will forget.” Nothing has changed, but everything has; things previously considered ‘normal’: objects, interactions (with both strangers and friends), the quotidian day-to-day, have become unusual – surreal even. &nbsp; And it sems to me that the exchange above illustrates two poles of opinion – and responses – to our real-world brush with societal weirding in a post- (and yet not post-) Covid world. There are those who seem to have picked up where their lives left off before anyone had ever heard of coronavirus, eager to shop, socialise, get back to the office and what have you; some, meanwhile, are finding the adjustment less smooth, discovering built up centres of population to be stranger, more intimidating and less familiar with each visit. Current Mostyn Gallery exhibition, Picture The Others, sees artist and writer Angharad Williams’ (in her first institutional show) in the latter camp. Although not explicitly addressing the effects and ongoing fallout of the last two years, the exhibition can’t help but be read in such terms. As we are reminded by the exhibition guide: “The world has ceased to present itself in the old terms.” Certainly, filtered through my own very recent (and belated) falling foul of Covid, Picture The Others reads as a quiet engagement with, and contemplation of the effects that this global happening has wrought on our subjective relationship to the outside world – and each other. &nbsp; Across film, painting, sculpture and installation (all made in 2022), the exhibition is “an introspective search and subsequently a process of connecting to the outside.” Further, it asks ‘what do we do now that “the other” means practically everyone else?’ The first works encountered, The Security Dilemma II are not by Williams, but their inclusion, setting an ambivalent tone, is apt. The trio of Rhia Davenport’s corn dollies – in See No Evil Hear No Evil Speak No Evil poses – mirror now commonplace thoughts and fears about crossing the threshold of the front door into the outside world. In the next space, the weird is turned up a few notches still, with lots to unpick. The Prism of Your Life sees a pair of reclaimed telegraph poles, strung between which is a pulley-operated clothesline. It has a non-identical twin in the exhibition’s final room, fixed to which is what looks like the outline of a window frame – firmly putting us in Rear Window territory. One has to wonder: are we on the outside looking in, or vice-versa? Relating to the law, relating to nature is a vermillion stained 1969 Prince of Wales investiture chair procured from eBay. Bearing the legend Ich Dien, from the German and meaning ‘I serve’, it asks pertinent questions of power relations. And juxtaposed with those scruffy telegraph poles, it cannot help but seem somewhat incongruous; not unlike today’s Royal Family themselves. Suitably named 4k video work Joe Public finds the artist out and about, in the act of refamiliarizing herself with the world outside the window. Variously we see Williams at a car-boot sale, eating a packed-lunch, popping to the shops, and learning to shoot. All relatively mundane acts rendered less so by circumstance, in which we sometimes must dare ourselves simply to partake. In two of the exhibition’s four spaces, you will find acrylic heat signature style paintings sharing the title The Dents. One of which, subtitled Predator and Pray [sic], features a small rodent; nearby, ominously, an uncoiled snake looms. As with other works in this thought-provoking and often gnomic exhibition, we are presented with a dichotomy. Just who might be cast as predator in this scenario? Who is on the other side of the equation? And, ultimately, can we – should we – take that which is shown to us at face value? In a post-truth context, there are, increasingly, many different scenarios for which such questions seem increasingly relevant. Turning once more to the accompanying text: “We are presented with cleverly orchestrated and excessively violent political fiction under the guise of all kinds of different but very real wars...” Whether these be wars of culture or, as Vladimir Putin would have us believe, of the ‘special military operation’ variety.&nbsp; Williams’ exhibition proposes that we, rather than swallow whole black and white interpretations of the world (for such narratives should be viewed with suspicion), exercise a greater degree of circumspection in our engagements with it, while extending consideration for how we picture those so-called ‘others’. Picture the Others (19 February - 12 June 2022), Mostyn Gallery, Wales https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/The-Stars-Our-Destination-Science-Fiction-and-why-it-matters Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:01:19 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/The-Stars-Our-Destination-Science-Fiction-and-why-it-matters The Stars Our Destination? Science Fiction and why it matters Commissioned by Dorothy, May 2022 <img width="531" height="730" width_o="531" height_o="730" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9bb8662f917cd50a2868bb9663b514a159f3e19e39a89f85d0285114e8cb575e/sciencefictionstarchart2-dorothy-web.jpg" data-mid="170297133" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/531/i/9bb8662f917cd50a2868bb9663b514a159f3e19e39a89f85d0285114e8cb575e/sciencefictionstarchart2-dorothy-web.jpg" /> I’m about four years old. I’m sat in the dark of a cinema and my baby-sitter is doing those big, can’t quite catch your breath sobs, reserved for when the really bad stuff happens. We can barely stand it as E.T. lies prone, seemingly dying, surrounded by useless, interfering humans. A year later me and dad watch, completely rapt, as Luke and Leia perilously dart through trees on speeder bikes in pursuit of Imperial Stormtroopers on the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. Two years later still I sit, now aged about seven, in the front row of a cinema with a bunch of friends (and a brave lone parent) watching Back to the Future. It’s the first time I’ll remember ‘experiencing’ a film from start to finish. (I placed no small significance on the fact that the actor playing Marty was, like me, a Michael J.) These are the first three films I recall seeing at the cinema. They involve, respectively: an alien visitor stranded on earth befriended by a young boy named Elliott; space battles and a force-wielding saviour of the galaxy; a world in which time travel has been achieved by a mad scientist in a DeLorean abetted by a guitar-obsessed smart-ass kid. Very different set-ups, and yet… can it have been coincidence that they each happen to fall into the category clearly marked Science Fiction? Because, for as long as I can remember I’ve loved the genre; one brimming with escapism, spectacle, and wonder tailor made for the big screen. As Bryony Dixon writes in her essay included in the BFI’s Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder: “[the medium’s] greatest trick is to show us the imaginary.” Maybe it was a result of growing up during a still simmering cold war (the gravity of which I was still too young to grasp), televised space shuttle launches, and the threat of something called acid rain. Or maybe it was that, as a child of the eighties, I was hooked on Saturday morning kids TV, when advertising really began stoking the fires of movie tie in toy franchises. It was probably a combination of those and other factors, but I couldn’t get enough of it. Attracted to all things Sci-Fi, I sensed relatively early I think, that it wasn’t just about ray guns, flying saucers and shifting product. Peripherally at least, I knew that some stories had more to say than was reflected by their admittedly seductive shiny surfaces. Chocky, about a young boy with an invisible alien friend, and The Tripods, in which the Earth is subjected to a terrifying alien threat – by contrast to other stuff I was consuming at the time – seemed positively complex. Airing in 1984, they punctuated the releases of Return of the Jedi and Back to the Future (significantly, they were adapted from books by John Windham and John Christopher, authors I would revisit in adolescence and adulthood). It would become clear to me that Sci-Fi could be, very often is, a genre of ideas. Seeing Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in my teens I realised – probably for the first time – that cinema could be truly profound. Never mind that Douglas Trumbull’s special effects still seemed fresh as wet paint, Kubrick’s vision demonstrated to me that film could also be art. Years later, I saw Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), which had been marketed as a Russian answer to Kubrick’s film. They do have superficial things in common, of course (essentially, hard to comprehend, psychologically crushing occurrences on space missions gone awry); the main factor that unites them, however, is that they transcend mere entertainment or escapism, posing philosophical questions about humanity and our place in the universe. &nbsp; The genre seems to be peculiarly adept at this. If, as celebrated author Brian Aldiss has written, “Science fiction stories are the fables of a technological age”, they also, through presenting us with what academic, writer and critic Darko Suvin refers to as a “strange newness”, allow us to see things afresh. This estrangement, diverging from the genre’s pulpy reputation, is one of Sci-Fi’s greatest strengths, opening the door to new perspectives on the world we live in, to understand and critique our reality via a futuristic lens. To paraphrase Ursula K. Le Guin: Sci-Fi helps you to recognise what you did not know before. If films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solarissupport the idea that our destinies lie in space, they also carry warnings about our lack of preparedness for what’s ‘out there’, including an inability to come to terms with ‘it’ once we arrive. And yet we are compelled to strike out, to breach the final frontier. As JFK said in his famous "We choose to go to the Moon" speech: “that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.” But some of the biggest challenges will surely come in the form of problems we take with us to the stars. The all too human ones. From its very early days, Sci-Fi has carried such messages. Georges Méliès 1902 film Le Voyage Dans La Lune (widely considered to be the earliest science fiction film) tantalised audiences with the possibility of venturing out into the great beyond; but its subtext can easily be read as a comment on French colonialism. Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009), meanwhile, is, if anything, more sobering. One of my favourite films of the 21st century so far, although it has a thrilling and touching plot, it is also an indictment of capitalism and mundane McJobs, and calls into question the murky ethics around cloning. (It does, though, unlike 2001’s HAL, have a very friendly AI in Gerty.)&nbsp; Such ambivalence about what the future holds, suggesting an understandable pessimism and malaise about where we’re at as a race, has frequently been to the fore in more recent Sci-Fi, much of which has featured on TV. The thing is, this nominally bleak position commonly makes for great, immersive stories, largely because we recognise in them our own lives, and the lives of others. Dystopian nightmare The Handmaid’s Tale, for instance – with its brutal take on the swingeing infringement on women’s and civil rights in general – feels all too urgently relevant. As Margaret Atwood (who would argue for the term speculative fiction as opposed to Sci-Fi), the author of the book from which it has been adapted, has said: “Is it entertainment or dire political prophecy? Can it be both?” In any case, since its arrival on our screens in 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale has so far aired for four seasons with nods and direct references to the show spilling out into wider popular culture and politics. Somewhat less grim (although it stops far short of utopianism) is the quietly understated Tales From the Loop (2020). With its interconnected, though more or less self-contained episodes responding to the subterranean tech facility of the title, it is heavy with ennui, fetishizing and mourning a future that never came to pass. Abandoned, sometimes obsolete tech – including a ‘transposer’ which allows users to switch bodies; a time-controlling stasis device; and a radio-controlled robot – lies hither and thither, just waiting to be stumbled across. “Careful what you wish for,” Tales From the Loop seems to whisper, warning against nostalgia for the unfulfilled dreams of an easily imaginable alternate reality, one not so very far removed from our own. &nbsp; Back on the big screen, Sci-Fi is perhaps the dominant force at the box office. There, alongside the questioning and contemplation of films like Under the Skin (2013) and Ex Machina (2014), there remains room for wonder and, indeed, hope. Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 film Arrival, ultimately, is about communication; about listening to and understanding others; about finding ways to talk to aliens rather than waging war against them. And, amid the mind-bending many worlds theory carnage of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), there lies a simple message. Starring Michelle Yeoh as the perpetually underwhelmed and overworked Evelyn, the film declares that it’s important to own and celebrate our lives – even if we perceive them to be small, mundane, and sometimes disappointing. It is the thoughtful multiverse movie that Marvel could never hope to make. &nbsp; &nbsp; Like the multi-tasking Evelyn, then, Sci-Fi is very rarely only one thing at a time; it holds up a mirror to our own lives even as it sweeps us to parallel universes and/or distant lands; it entertains while provoking our critical faculties – even if we might not immediately realise it. Not for nothing did Ursula K. Le Guin call the genre “the most flexible, adaptable broad range, imaginative, crazy form that fiction has ever attained.” And that, among other reasons, is why I keep returning to Sci-Fi, seeking out galaxies far, far away. ︎︎︎wearedorothy.com/ https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Radical-Landscapes-Tate-Liverpool Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:01:20 +0000 Mike Pinnington https://mikepinnington.cargo.site/Radical-Landscapes-Tate-Liverpool Radical Landscapes, Tate Liverpool Commissioned by Art Monthly,&nbsp; No.457, June 2022 <img width="531" height="730" width_o="531" height_o="730" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/95799ff038fd6265a4f718f023f625216b96cf298b0a0c9e2a977d09e300e00e/claude-cahun-radicallandscapes-tate.jpg" data-mid="146745321" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/531/i/95799ff038fd6265a4f718f023f625216b96cf298b0a0c9e2a977d09e300e00e/claude-cahun-radicallandscapes-tate.jpg" /> So entrenched in our culture is the word and our imagined relationship to it that when we hear ‘landscape’ it can’t help but evoke a particular type of scene. Predominantly green, there will be trees; maybe a farmer’s field; and a little brook or other body of water, bubbling along innocuously. The epitome of a green and pleasant land. This is the very thing we encounter early on in Radical Landscapes, the new exhibition at Tate Liverpool. It comes in the form of John Constable’s Flatford Mill (‘Scene on a Navigable River’, 1816–17). Its inclusion is something of a red herring. Painted at a time when such rustic nostalgia came to prominence and flourished here, today it serves to represent how things – we, society, expectations – have changed. This exhibition is nothing if not aptly named. It wastes little time in presenting the case that no longer is it enough to naively think of the land as we encounter it entirely benign, or to present it as such. A key question the show engages with from the off is who has access to this land. Who gets to tread, without fear of prosecution or micro-aggressions, our common land? An astutely selected clip from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972) critiques Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews (c.1750) – a couple posed amid their rural idyl – thus: “they have become, not a couple in nature… theirs is private land… without a doubt, amongst the principle pleasures this painting gave to Mr and Mrs Andrews was the pleasure of seeing themselves as the owners of their own land, and this pleasure was enhanced by the ability of oil paint, to render this land in all its substantiality.” Berger goes on to mention that “if a man stole a potato at that time, he risked a public whipping; the sentence for poaching was deportation.” Difficult, when contextualised in this way, not to read this as landed gentry rubbing our noses in it. And at times this does seem like an angry show. Here we see Hurvin Anderson’s Double Grille (2008), verdant nature out of reach behind the protective/exclusionary wrought iron screen of the title. Elsewhere there is a vitrine of ephemera including works on paper and books under the banner of The Festival of Britain, held in 1951 to engender national pride and recovery in the aftermath of the Second World War. Today, its inclusion can be read as pointed riposte to Brexit, the forthcoming white elephant of Unboxed (the rebranded Festival of Brexit) and the little Englander attitudes that led us to it. &nbsp; Radical Landscapes’ is a controlled anger, though, one wielded judiciously. This allows for some smart curatorial choices and juxtapositions. In a section titled Militarised Landscapes, we find Henry Moore’s Atom Piece (Working Model for Nuclear Energy), a large sculpture that looks like the warped remains of the head of a gigantic metal god in the aftermath of a nuclear strike. Beyond the sculpture, your eyes land on a pair of lithographs, posters for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, one of which features a human skull and mushroom cloud – a chilling twin to Atom Piece. Worth noting that, when the CND was launched in 1958, Moore had been among its founder members. Nearby, our friend John Constable crops up again, punkily co-opted by Peter Kennard for photomontage Haywain with Cruise Missiles (1980), which inserts nuclear warheads into the quaint 1821 work. But for all the arch nods and associations, at no point does the exhibition lapse into feeling like a lecture; nor is it ever overly bleak or dystopian. There is room made for quiet optimism In Turner Prize nominee Ingrid Pollard’s Oceans Apart, in which we find people of colour enjoying a day at the beach – a scene usually almost exclusively populated by white bodies. We find artists in conversation with the land and occasionally each other. Jeremy Deller’s fun and, dare I say it, highly instagrammable neon take on the ancient giant of Cerne Abbas reaches back to land artist Richard Long’s 1975 Cerne Abbas Walk. Derek Jarman’s experimental Super 8 film Journey to Avebury documenting the artist’s walk among Neolithic stones can be found nearby Barbara Hepworth’s Two Figures (Menhirs). Together they bring a welcome slice of English eerie to the fore. Great surrealist Claude Cahun’s familiar Je Tends les Bras, a 1931 self-portrait with a stone monolith, is one of a grouping of six works that bring yet further weirding of the landscape to proceedings. The exhibition’s final section is dedicated to botany. A happy marriage of Western and Islamic traditions, Anwar Jalal Shemza’s Apple Tree (1962) sees a staple of Englishness fed through the filters of immigration and abstraction. Brimming with folkloric allusion, Eileen Agar’s almost psychedelic Figures in a Garden (1979–81) finds a pair of partially fragmented beings apparently composed of mulch and plant life. More of which can be found in the show’s climax: Ruth Ewan’s Back To The Fields (2015–2022). A so-called living installation, literally infusing the space it inhabits with life, it was inspired by the French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1805), whose seasons and days were named in consultation with artists, poets and horticulturalists. &nbsp; It makes for a serene, contemplative grand finale, one packed with plants, vegetables and flowers; it smells amazing. The inclusion of animal skulls, though, reminds you of the circularity of these things; and glance through the windows of Back To The Fields and you’ll spy Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Quin Morere (1991) – a guillotine. &nbsp;&nbsp; Asking what a green and pleasant land is and to whom through the lens of this no longer young century, Radical Landscapes rises to the occasion to explore and contextualise complex, nuanced, and – often – unpalatable answers. Covering over a century of landscape art and featuring more than 150 works, it is an at times unwieldy exhibition; its relevance, however, and the ways in which it extends the parameters of what we think of when we think about landscapes, is inarguable. Image:&nbsp; Claude Cahun,&nbsp;I Extend My Arms, 1931 or 1932, Tate Liverpool