Liverpool Biennial is the UK’s largest festival of contemporary visual art, established in 1998. Since its inception, the International exhibition has commissioned well over 100 new works, many for the streets and public spaces of Liverpool, by established contemporary artists from around the world.
Liverpool Biennial also has a year-round role commissioning art for the public realm. Past projects include Antony Gormley’s work ‘Another Place’, which has found a permanent home at Crosby beach, and ‘Turning the Place Over’ by Richard Wilson, which turns a building inside-out. The mission through all the biennial’s activities is ‘engaging art, people and place’. This is done by commissioning artworks and other programmes collaboratively, in partnership with a myriad of organisations and individuals, from the city’s established art institutions to community groups in local neighbourhoods. These activities find support from a range of local authorities, private trusts, and regeneration agencies in the city region and beyond.
The Liverpool Biennial also works towards ambitious educational objectives, through a programme of activities developed within the context of the work we commission. The biennial plays a key role in the ongoing development of Liverpool as a place for artists to learn, live and work, and engage in discourse-based activity with peers locally, nationally and internationally.
