LEONORA CARRINGTON @ TATE, LIVERPOOL

‘The Pomps of the Subsoil’ (1947).

A prolific painter, the retrospective offers an insight into how the artist established her distinctive take on surrealism; characterised by eccentric beings which shift between plant, animal, human and object; between reality and otherworldliness. Taking key paintings as its starting point Leonora Carrington examines Carrington’s diverse practice and uses the artist’s own words, brought together by Mexican author Chloe Aridjis, to narrate the display.

                       ‘Inn of the Dawn Horse’ (1937)

In the mid-1930s Carrington turned her back on her upper-class upbringing in northern England, embarking upon a complicated relationship with German artist Max Ernst in France before spending a short time in Spain during the Second World War. Her creative practice at this point encompassed writing short stories, drawing and painting.

It was after arriving in Mexico in 1942 that Carrington’s practice expanded further as she populated plays, sculptures and textiles with her extraordinary worlds. In 1947 her work was included in an international exhibition of surrealism in New York, where she was the only female British artist featured, establishing her pivotal role within the surrealist movement. In the 1950s and 60s Carrington broadened her practice and embraced set and costume design for productions including her own, Penelope 1957, and films, for which she designed sets and costumes, as well as performing as an actress.

The Magical World of the Mayas 1964

A major highlight in the exhibition is The Magical World of the Mayas 1964, a 4.5 metre long mural painted by Carrington for the opening of the new Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City in 1964. On display for the first time outside Mexico it serves as a monument to Carrington’s relationship with Mexico, the country she adopted as her home.

Refusing to be constrained or restricted by expectations or conventional limitations, Carrington’s expanded practice has made her an inspiration to many contemporary artists working across a range of mediums. Her patron Edward James commented in 1975 that ‘she has never relinquished her love of experimentation, the result being that she has been able to diversify and explore a hundred or more techniques for the expression of her creative powers’.

Leonora Carrington is exhibited alongside Cathy Wilkes as part of Tate Liverpool’s spring season, Surreal Landscapes. Also running concurrently in the ground floor Wolfson Gallery is György Kepes. Together they are three artists who, working in different periods, are variously connected by motifs alluding to invented worlds, domestic objects and settings, an interest in assemblage and a sense of mystery.

METAMORPHOSIS OF JAPAN AFTER THE WAR @ OPEN EYE GALLERY, LIVERPOOL

The Open Eye Gallery’s current exhibition, organized by the Japan Foundation showcases 123 black-and white photographs by 11 renowned post-war Japanese photographers, including Ihee Kimura, Ken Domon and Eikoh Hosoe.  The Metamorphosis of Japan after the War, presents a retrospective review of the creative energy of Japanese society during the turbulent period that followed the War.

In 1945, post-war Japan made a new start from the ashes of devastation. In the twenty years leading up to the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, it succeeded in undergoing a dramatic transformation, embarking on a path towards becoming an economic power.

These two decades constituted a period truly brimming with creative energy – a time in which democracy led to the restoration of vitality and free photographic expression, in which new talent pioneered post-war photography.

 Rather than arranging the works chronologically, by period and author, this exhibition is divided into three sections – “The Aftermath of the War,” “Between Tradition and Modernity,” and “Towards a New Japan” to showcase the metamorphosis of Japan after the war.

When I first entered the exhibition space, this arrangement struck me as arbitrary. However, after viewing the collection of photographs in their entirety, it was clear that this was a judiciously curated retrospective; as in fact the sequence provided the viewer with a vivid narrative of the convoluted aspects of this complicated era in Japans history.   

The works presented in this exhibition are a reflection of the complexity of modern Japanese identity. The photographs present the profound changes in all areas of Japanese society and their economy, which characterized the post-war period. Many of these changes were extremely abrupt and threw wide open the question of what was becoming of Japanese identity. During the post-war years Japanese photography went through one of the most effervescent periods in its history. Although the artists presented in this exhibition have radically different and sometimes opposing photographic approaches, they are united by their unwavering desire to grapple with the fundamental question, “What is Japan?”. It is my hope that their work continues to be shown, in Japan of course, but also in the West. Their images bring to life an extraordinary period of human struggle and social transformation and the commitment that they showed to their times has yet to be surpassed.

Group Therapy: Mental Distress in a Digital Age @ FACT

Albert Einstein once said that “technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal” and I think he may have been on to something. It is common knowledge that one in four people in the UK will battle some degree of mental illness during their lifetime. But what is given far less scope is why, in a technologically sophisticated corner of the world, so many are forced to battle with these mental health issues alone.

The latest exhibition at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) has been cultivated to encourage reflection upon individual mental health. Exploring the destructive effects of depression, the frustrating hallucinations of psychosis and even the consequences of war stress upon veterans and their families, the exhibit is well worth a visit for anybody who’s ever felt alienated (or whipped) by the frighteningly influential digital age.

Group Therapy: Mental Distress in a Digital Age ,explores the bewildering relationship between technology, society and mental health. If you’ve ever felt so damn frustrated that nothing but screaming at the top of your lungs would give you release, the sound-proofed room at the exhibit will let you blow off steam. Within a boxy, pitch-black cinema, harrowing tales of manic depression and the slow decline into a bleak world of nothingness are breathtakingly portrayed by the metaphoric ‘black dog’ sketch, illustrating how consuming the illness can be. Within the sketch, created by artists Kate Owens and Neeta Madahar, the protagonist approaches depression head-on in a desperate attempt to better understand how her feelings and experiences define her personality, and as we follow her on the journey to self-acceptance, we’re forced to contemplate the times in our own lives when we’ve ever felt alone, dejected or empty. The exhibit beautifully demonstrates how we should all take the time to familiarise with depression; an illness that currently impacts more than 350 million of us worldwide.

Possibly the most elusive of all exhibits at FACT is the Labyrinth Psychotica, forcing even the most stable minds into a weary state of contemplation and uncertainty. As you’re handed a lab coat and led into utter darkness, you’re forced to immerse yourself into the mesmerising, terrifying and confronting world of psychosis. Immeasurable twists and turns leading you further into the unknown trick your mind into replicating symptoms of psychosis. Expect strobe lighting, claustrophobia and absolute darkness (with whispering voices thrown in to really trip you out).

Many of us find ourselves utterly hurt and humiliated, but forcing our most convincing smile. We’ve conditioned ourselves to mask our true emotions, but there’s no escaping the heart-rate monitor at FACT. Visitors are told to lay themselves flat on a bed, attaching a clip to their right ear. A screen above, adorned with bright lighting, changes colour according to our real mood as decided by our heart-rate. Regardless of how convincing your smile may be the device knows what’s really in your heart of hearts, and doesn’t hold back as it cascades the appropriate lighting across the room.

Other exhibits include In Hand, a smartphone app which acts as a ‘digital friend’ in times of low mood, depression and/or anxiety, developed in collaboration with young people who have experienced the full demand of mental health issues. The app uses a ‘traffic light’ system, allowing the user to communicate how they are feeling, to which the app responds by suggesting a number of actions which help them to manage feelings of stress, anxiety or depression.