Contemporary art festival spreads out across UK and online
A contemporary art festival is expanding from London to take place across the country, from the Isle of Skye to Wales this summer.
Art Night 2021 will take place in more than 10 locations around the United Kingdom including Abergavenny train station, Eastbourne, Leeds and Cambridge, while a series of commissions will unfold online. For the first time the festival, this year titled Nothing Compares2u,willtakeplacefor a month, running from June 18 to July 18.
It will include a series of billboards across the country by Guerrilla Girls, their biggest UK public commission to date, titled The Male Graze which will explore bad behaviour bothhistoricallyandinthepresent day. It will appear in places includinglondon,eastbourne, Dundee, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff, Warwick, Swansea and more.
Others featuring in the festivalincludeturnerprizewinner Mark Leckey and Barbadianscottish artist Alberta Whittle.
Helen Nisbet, artistic director of Art Night 2021, said: "We find ourselves hobbling, a year aftercovid-19;politicalandeconomic uncertainty and potential devastation for the arts.
"This programme was developed during ongoing Brexit 'negotiations' in a Conservative-led Britain, with far-right politics rising across the globe.
"The Art Night 2021 programme was and is still about our personal victories and survival tactics - small acts of defiance and moments of selfdetermination - both personal and collective.
Alberta Whittle, who has been commissioned to represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale 59th International Art Exhibition, will make and presentanewfilm,holdingthe Line, alongside a recorded performance at Somerset House inlondonwhichwillbebroadcast at the end of the festival.
There will also be a screening programme of her films in Abergavenny train station, Walesinpartnershipwithpeak, andatklaartproducedby32 Degrees East in Uganda.
In Scotland, Isabel Lewis has developed a new Art Night commission - What can we learn about love from lichen? - in the Isle of Skye. She is working with collaborators on the island to choreograph a series of guided walks which will be brought together in a final "hosted occasion", in a co-commissionbetweenartnightand ATLAS Arts.