Two floors of Lewis's department store are being reopened to the public after 10 years as part of the Liverpool Biennial contemporary art festival.
Although part of the building has been converted into a hotel and offices, the rest has remained closed since the store shut its doors in May 2010 after 154 years of trading.
The Grade II-listing building with Jacob Epstein's famous 'Dicky Lewis' naked statue above the entrance remains one of the city's much-loved landmarks. It will form one of many exhibition spaces as Liverpool is transformed into a city-wide massive art gallery for the 15-week festival.
Among the works displayed in Lewis's from February 2021 will be Neo Muyanga’s newly commissioned video installation A Maze in Grace, inspired by the hymn Amazing Grace, which has a strong Liverpool connection.
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The song was composed by English slaver-turned-abolitionist John Newton, who lived in the city and sailed on slave ships from its port. It was adopted as an emblem of the Civil Rights Movement but Muyanga’s reinterpretation connects its origins to its murkier history as well as Liverpool’s involvement in the Slave Trade.
The Biennial programme is being launched in full at 9am today but the ECHO was given a sneak peek ahead of the announcement.
We can also reveal the festival will feature six new public realm artworks displayed at outdoor locations across the city including Exchange Flags, Canning Dock, Crown Street Car Park and within Liverpool ONE.
Created by artists Larry Achiampong, Teresa Solar, Erick Beltran, Liverpool-born Linder, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Rashid Johnson, they will fit into the Biennial's 2021 theme of The Stomach and the Port.
Sam Lackey, Liverpool Biennial interim director, says: “We are experiencing intense and transformative events across the globe, with many of us adapting to, and coping with, life-changing shifts. At Liverpool Biennial we feel that ways of sharing and interpreting our lives and experience are of huge importance right now.
"The 11th Edition of Liverpool Biennial has been curated with passion and nurtured over several years with a group of carefully selected artists who are connected to Liverpool as a place.
"The city is known for being an epicentre of social and cultural exchange, through connecting communities and artists and continually reshaping its global identity by steadfastly investing in arts and culture."
Curated by Manuela Moscoso, the programme showcases more than 50 leading and emerging artists including Frieze Artist Award winner Alberta Whittle, Rashid Johnson and Jenna Sutela.
New and existing works will be showcased at key venues in the city including Tate Liverpool, The Cotton Exchange, Bluecoat and FACT.
The exhibition at Lewis's will also feature highlights from Alice Channer, works from Camille Henrot’s Wet Job series and a multi-sensory installation from Lamin Fofana.
Manuela said: "Liverpool’s position as a port and hub of cross-cultural encounters, circulation, distribution and global transnational mobility – along with its difficult history of humans forcibly moved from Africa to the Americans and beyond – is central to the narrative of this edition."
The Biennial was postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and will now take place from March 20 to June 6.
The UK's biggest painting competition, The John Moores Painting Prize, which usually runs alongside the festival, will open at the Walker Art Gallery on February 12.
