Art Greats Come To The City

It’s been a strong year for Ceri Hand, with a programme of tasty shows – both home grown: spotlighting the curator’s uncanny eye for developing and representing some of the region’s most exciting talent, and star-studded: with pieces by Warhol and Hockney gracing the walls of an ex-motor mechanics’ shed in the northern docks earlier in the year. Not something you see every day.

So it’s fitting that the gallery, and its tireless founder, is set to end the year on a high, joining forces with CUC for a Christmas art fair with a difference. And SevenStreets finds it encouraging that, in a turbulent year for the Baltic Triangle, both ends of the city are tied, temporarily, together in what looks like an amazing new exhibition, currently being installed in the CUC attic.

By joining forces, and making use of the excellent space available at the CUC, Ceri Hand, in collaboration with the team at CUC Liverpool, is bringing a Christmas crop of international stars to the city: a pantomime of painters, you could say. But you’d probably be better off not.

Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction is a special pre-Christmas exhibition showcasing work by some of the greatest artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries, and – for those tricky Christmas gifts where a John Lewis voucher or fish pedicure just won’t do – there’s a wide selection of original and editioned works available to buy, including prints, oil paintings, ceramics and even a Henry Moore sculpture. We’re sure Amanda Harrington would simply die for one. In leopard skin and Swarovski eyes.

The exhibition will feature art works Damien Hirst (he’ll probably buy that one himself, for a trillion pounds. Just to keep the market on its toes), Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Ken Kiff, RB Kitaj, Oskar Kokoschka, Yayoi Kusama, Henri Matisse, Roy Lichtenstein, John Baldessari, Henry Moore, Therese Oulton, Pablo Picasso, Paula Rego, Victor Pasmore, Albert Irvin, Bridget Riley, Anthony Gormley, Graham Sutherland and Patrick Caulfield.

That – in anyone’s language – is some line-up.

The exhibition takes place in the Attic Gallery on the fifth floor at CUC Liverpool, 41 – 51 Greenland Street, Liverpool L1 0BS. Entry is free.

To view any of the selected works in advance contact Lucy Johnston lucy@cerihand.co.uk.

Preview: 24 November 6-8pm
Exhibition runs Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm or by appointment, until Friday 16 December.
CUC Liverpool, 41 – 51 Greenland Street

www.cerihand.co.uk