Made Up

Established in 1998, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art is the UK's and one of the world's largest celebrations of contemporary art and involves eight major art institutions and in 2008 will be bigger than ever. Staged in a large number of venues across the city, as well as in public spaces, the Biennial attracts up to 500,000 visitors during the period September to December every two years. Celebrating 10 years of commissioning ambitious and challenging new work by leading international artists, the fifth edition of Liverpool Biennial's International exhibition is MADE UP, an exploration of the power of the artistic imagination. The public realm projects continue to be a defining feature of Liverpool Biennial, with over half of the 30-40 commissions situated in the public realm. MADE UP outside the gallery allows fiction to rub up against the real, inviting artists to carve out space for the imagination in the everyday, whether in imaginary models made manifest as real examples, or playful re-workings of the real. MADE UP sees imagination (called 'invention' in the 18th century) as the dynamo of art. At the heart of this exhibition's broad ranging exploration of 'making things up' (which includes utopias and dystopias, narrative fiction, fantasy, myths, lies, prophesies, subversion and spectacle) is the emotional charge which powers the artistic imagination. Whether mischievous, constructive or iconoclastic, MADE UP is about art's capacity to transport us, to suspend disbelief and generate alternative realities. For the first time in 2008, the traditional 'catalogue' will not be produced, but the Biennial Reader will feature ten essays exploring the themes of MADE UP and the featured artists' installations, with full-color contextual images as well as extensive illustration of new artwork from the Biennial. This will include, for the first time, major installations of artwork in the most socially deprived areas of the city.