A series of new art installations depicting burglary masks could be installed behind St George’s Hall as part of a major cultural festival.
A planning application has been lodged with Liverpool Council for the siting of seven cast-bronze hand woven baskets in St John’s Gardens for a period of three months during Liverpool Biennial. The sculptures, designed by American artist Nicholas Galanin, would be sat upon concrete plinths and resemble burglary masks, known as Threat Return, as per a heritage statement submitted alongside the plans.
Liverpool Biennial is the largest festival of contemporary visual art in the UK and will host its 12th event from June to September. It will be curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa.
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According to planning documents submitted to the local authority, the proposed artwork would reference busts and monuments which surround the piece in St John’s Gardens and within the nearby galleries and museums, many of which celebrate men and families who made their wealth in shipping and merchant trade. The work by Mr Galanin will also make reference to museum displays of Indigenous North American and African basketry and cinematic portrayals of thieves via ski-mask cut-outs incised into each basket, contemplating the commodification, reproduction, theft, and imitation of indigenous cultural traditions.
The planning report said: “The work is a reflection on what is considered to be theft, a meditation on the reflexivity of threat, and the return of energy as well as cultural property. Galanin insists on the persistence of Indigenous connection to land and culture which is embedded in bodies, memories, traditions, objects and languages.”
In a heritage statement accompanying the application Liverpool Biennial, said: “We feel St John’s Gardens is an ideal site for this work. Nicholas visited the gardens last summer and was struck by its resonance as a memorial garden. To have this work in close proximity to contentious figures in the history of Liverpool’s involvement in the International Slave Trade and the UK’s political history is certainly poignant, continuing the great work done by the Statues Redressed project.
“The history of this site and its relationship to colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade is a major factor in the location of this work, allowing us to bring a major new commission from an internationally celebrated artist to Liverpool once more.”
The masks would be fixed to the plinth by a steel bar and placed on a metal plate when sited in St John’s Gardens. A date for the application to be considered by the planning department has yet to be determined.
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