Artist / Research

Pete Clarke moved to Liverpool in 1978 after studying at Chelsea School of Art, West of England College of Art [Bristol Polytechnic], Burnley Municipal College and living for a time on the Isle of Wight and then London. The changing face of this city has fascinated him and in many ways it represents the social and cultural history that personifies the shifts and developments of ‘modernity’ and concepts of the regional in the international.

He is the MA Course Leader and Principal Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston. He leads the artists’ initiative ‘Eight Days A Week’, arranging reciprocal exhibitions, projects and events in Liverpool and Cologne. He makes paintings, prints and installations with the artist Georg Gartz from Cologne exploring collaborative strategies within contemporary practice questioning individuality, authorship and authenticity in a European context.

‘MISTAKES AND METAPHORS’

In 2009 Matthew Clough, Director of Art and Heritage Collections at the University of Liverpool curated the Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Prints and Drawings, ‘Looking Back: Facing Forward: Mistakes and Metaphors’, at the refurbished Victoria Gallery and Museum, Liverpool. The exhibition produced an illustrated and annotated catalogue of retrospective work by Pete Clarke featuring critical contextual essays by Matthew Clough and Bryan Biggs, Artistic Director at the Bluecoat and a transcript of the conversation with the French Art Historian Gabriel Gee and the artist.

The exhibition was also a platform for contextual discussion and lectures in relation to the new book featuring Pete Clarke’s work ‘Art in a City Revisited’ [edited by Bryan Biggs and Julie Sheldon and published by the Bluecoat and Liverpool University Press] which looks at Liverpool 40 years on from John Willett’s seminal study ‘Art in a City’.

In 2008 Clarke organised the ‘Eight Days A Week’ residency project at the Bluecoat contributing to 2008 Liverpool European City of Culture when 12 Liverpool and Cologne artists made work in the city and then exhibited paintings in ‘Next Up, Liverpool Art Now’.
He curated ‘ Tiefshwarz [Deep Black]’ a printmaking project in Cologne and Pancevo, Belgrade: curated the Printmaking Project ‘Global Studio’ at the Bluecoat in 2010 selecting artists from various international ‘Global’ networks, for example IMPACT 6 Print Conference and exhibition, Bristol 2009, Coast- the Liverpool International Artists Workshop 2007 and ‘Eight Days A Week’.

Recent exhibitions in 2008 were ‘Scars from Falls’, Köln and ‘Rheinwarts’, Collaborative paintings by Pete Clarke and Georg Gartz, Museum Zundorfer Wehrturm, Köln, and in 2010 ‘Five Contemporary Printmakers’ Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool, ‘Werkart’ Cologne and the series of ‘Mount Vernon’ photopolymer etchings at Global Studio, Bluecoat and Pancevo, Belgrade, Serbia.

The Problems of developing a singular ‘Research Question’ for artists in Academia? Differing strategies, differing contexts?

Pete Clarke is a Liverpool based artist who explores representations of the changing city as a metaphor for concepts of modernity and history.
[Research Content]

Pete Clarke is an artist who aims to create a significant aesthetic practice by exploring and challenging the definitions, assumptions and practices of contemporary image making utilising painting, printmaking, photography, poetic text and drawing.
[Research Form]

The Primary research question investigates how a sustainable regional practice can be validated by challenging the centralised ‘British metropolitan model’ of cultural discourse and authorship by exploring new strategies for exhibition and creative dialogue. The research project explores the determining influences on creative practice questioning history and education within a European context. The research project proposes a new conceptual understanding and repositioning of ‘International Practice in the Regional’ and how this impacts on the developing cultural infrastructure of the North West.
[Research Context]

Developing new possibilities through artists’ initiatives and contemporary practice facilitating new concepts for exhibition by expanding the creative opportunities in the North West within an international context.

Eight Days A Week                                                                   www.eightdaysaweek.org.uk

Eight days a week’ is a Project started in 1998, it is co curated by Pete Clarke from Liverpool and Bryan Biggs, Director Bluecoat Arts Centre with Jürgen Kisters, Journalist and Art Critic Kölner Stadt Enzeiger and artist Georg Gartz from Köln.

Clarke is Lead Artist, Manager and Chairs the Steering Group for the Artists’ Initiative and Cultural Exchange Project. This has been funded by Liverpool Culture Company, British Council, Goethe Institute and Arts Council of England. Eight Days explores strategies for creative dialogue between the cities and regions of Liverpool and Cologne, through an ongoing cultural exchange programme that promotes the new understanding of ‘International Practice in the Regional’. This Project facilitates artists from Liverpool and Cologne taking part in a unique cultural exchange through an ongoing programme of exhibitions, residencies, films, performances, discussions and publications. He has led the project to develop cultural festivals in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Eight Days a Week seeks to open up artists’ practices to new audiences and new communities within Europe, to generate informed and critical public debate around the social role of contemporary art and culture.

Liverpool 2008

Eight Days A Week took out a 3 month lease on the ‘Artist in Residence Space at the Bluecoat’, as a contribution to ‘Liverpool European Capital of Culture’, to function as an activity and resource space for artists from October 1st – December 31st 2008. This provided a base for a range of creative activities where artists from Liverpool and Cologne could continue the unique cultural exchange programme to develop links with educational and cultural institutions in the city.

Liverpool City Council highlighted ‘Eight days a week’ an inclusive collaborative project linking Liverpool with Cologne as a major part of the successful European Capital City of Culture submission for 2008. Pete Clarke explored the cultural dynamics between Liverpool and Cologne through an invited Tate Gallery Lecture in 2004 to contextualise the Cologne exhibitions ‘Rhinegold’, Tate Gallery, ‘Drawing Exhibition ZG’, Bluecoat Gallery and Liverpool Art School ‘Accidental Lines and Red Splashes’.

‘In exposed areas’ at the Kulturbunker, Mülheim, Köln and Atkinson Art Gallery Southport, Pete Clarke was exhibitor and lead curator giving a gallery lecture and editing the exhibition catalogue with a critical essay by Dr. Martin Turck, Cologne and Philip Wroe, exhibition curator, ISBN 0-9552820-1-2. In exposed areas explores the social and cultural climate for contemporary practice where different attitudes to painting can be seen as a form of critical and engaged dialogue. ‘In exposed areas’ was reviewed in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger by Jürgen Kisters, May 2006, featured in the Guardian June 2006 and Pete Clarke was invited by A-N for Artists magazine to write a piece with photograph for October 2006.

‘Eight days’ projects were funded and promoted by The British Council in Germany [www.britishcouncil.de/d/arts/liverpool.htm] and The Cities of Liverpool [Liverpool Culture Company] and Cologne [Stadt Kulturampt]. Recently Pete Clarke has written successful grant applications to the Liverpool Culture Company [£5000] and the Arts Council [£15000] and the PH Holt Charitable Trust to develop projects for 2006 and 2008.

In October 2006 Pete Clarke was editor of ‘Eight Days A Week’ 3rd edition newspaper, ISBN 0-9552820-4-7, 978-0-9552820-4-1 which was launched as part of Independents, Biennial Liverpool. Pete Clarke chaired the artists’ forum and gave a contextual introduction to lead the discussion.

‘Collaboration’, Paintings & Projects by Pete Clarke,
Liverpool & Georg Gartz, Cologne, 1998 - date:

Research exploring the determining influences on artists’ practice questioning history and education in a European context, exploring collaborative strategies, challenging concepts of originality, individuality, history and authenticity through dialogue and experimentation. The Project interrogates the practice of painting through the methodology of challenging the notion of a single fixed authorial point of view. The process of applying paint to canvas becomes a discursive act, not a series of composite impressions of the urban landscape but a kind of visual meditation on the city, an amalgam of differing perspectives. This project has produced work in England and Germany since 1998 and has made reciprocal exhibitions in Köln and Liverpool.

‘Rheinwarts’ - Ten Years Work 1998 – 2008, at the Museum Zündorfer Wehrturm, Köln.

The Collaboration Project was invited to have a Retrospective of Ten Years of Work at Museum Zündorfer Wehrturm, Cologne, May 2008. The project included publicity material and illustrated catalogue written by Anke von Heyl, Art Historian who also gave an introductory talk at the exhibition opening.

‘Through this dialogic process a body of painting has emerged which offers us, not a series of composite impressions of the urban landscape, but a kind of visual meditation on the city, an amalgam of differing perspectives. The paintings raise questions about how we picture the world, challenging the notion of a single fixed authorial point of view. They also interrogate the practice of painting itself through the methodology of the collaborative approach – the process of applying paint to canvas becoming a discursive act.’
From ‘Collaboration’ catalogue essay by Bryan Biggs, Artistic Director, Bluecoat, Liverpool 2000.

‘Crash 1’: Artists’ in Collaboration, curated by Georg Gartz and Pete Clarke, VHS Köln-Lindenthal 2004.
Crash 1 explored how artists’ work in various forms of collaboration, challenging concepts of originality and authenticity through dialogue and experimentation from formal painting, painting and poetry, interactive presentations and photographic installations, contemporary printmaking and textiles.
The Exhibition was formally opened with speeches by Helga Blömer- Frerker, Bezirksvorsteherin Lindenthal, Andrea Pohlmann- Jochheim, Head of Department of Culture, Stadt Köln and an introduction exploring concepts of collaboration within the European cultural context by Georg Gartz.

‘Crash 2’ New Painting from Liverpool curated by Pete Clarke, VHS Köln- Nippes 2004
The Exhibition was formally opened with speeches by Bernd Schössler, Bezirksvorsteher Nippes, Andrea Pohlmann- Jochheim, Head of Department of Culture, Stadt Köln and a presentation exploring Liverpool within the cultural context of the International by Pete Clarke.
The Exhibition and catalogue ‘Crash’ had an introduction by the Lord Mayor of Cologne and was funded by Liverpool Art School, The University of Central Lancashire, Preston and the P.H. Holt Trust and Stadt Köln, 20/10 Kulturhauptstadt Europas and DOM Kölsch, Germany. Reviewed in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger, ‘Ausstellungen von Kölnern und Liverpoolern sind in VHS-Galerien zu sehen’.

Bluecoat Design Team Artist
Pete Clarke was appointed the Design Team Artist in January 2003 for the redevelopment of the Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool from a competition of invited artists. The research project developed the artists’ creative input into the Design Team working with the Architectural team of Biq Architecten from Rotterdam who won the architectural commission from an international competition.
This Bluecoat Arts Centre redevelopment project calculated to be £15 million including design and rebuilding includes funding by the Liverpool City of Culture, Arts Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and North West Development Agency. This research role was to re-evaluate the role of contemporary artists in developing the historical infra structure of the Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, proposing initiatives to maximise the use of creative spaces and develop new ideas for artists’ participation in the studio and gallery programme. The Design Team Artist participated in generating concepts and creative functions for the development of the Bluecoat new gallery extension building. The research process aims to significantly increase the creative ambitions of the Bluecoat to widen participation and to develop the audience for innovative contemporary arts.

                                                      PRINTMAKING PROJECTS

GLOBAL STUDIO AT THE BLUECOAT
Aspects of contemporary printmaking, graphic processes of communication

Global as a concept is not necessarily about nationality, geography or place but more a question of attitude, a political commitment, a strategy and ambition to explore significant social and cultural questions through creative practice, dialogue and forms of communication. Over the last ten years the landscape for the creative practice of Printmaking has changed, the advent of global communication has enabled much greater international collaboration and for a wider community of Printmakers across the world to be connected. Printmaking, both in its message and its production, has always been primarily a democratic and collaborative process. These factors have allowed printmaking to quietly gain a more pivotal role in mainstream contemporary art practice.

Pete Clarke selected Roohi Ahmed, Wuon-Gean Ho, Georg Gartz and Carl Rowe, artists from various international networks for this Printmaking Project as part of ‘Global Studio’ - IMPACT 6 Print Conference and exhibition, Bristol, UK 2009, Coast- the Liverpool International Artists Workshop 2007 and the on-going ‘Eight Days A Week’ artists from Liverpool and Cologne taking part in unique cultural exchanges.

‘TRIPLE ECHO - ARTISTS IN PRINT’

A collaborative printmaking initiative between University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Liverpool JMU, and Wirral Metropolitan College, Birkenhead.

It is curious how contemporary art shifts and turns, opening up new possibilities, reviving and energising marginalised traditions of practice to generate new interpretations of modern experience. The graphic arts are in many ways going through a similar renaissance where new creative attitudes to historical printmaking processes are expanding the relationships between– the autographic, the technological and the chemical challenging the insular conventions and traditions of art and design.

Printmaking embraces and sits on the edges of practices, disciplines and categories, this interesting positioning allows for a free exchange between artists, designers and theoreticians to explore creative authorship outside of commercial constraints. Innovative printmakers emphasise new technical discoveries and creative content with an awareness of the contemporary within an historical context, seeking new strategies for distributing and presenting their work to a wider audience. Recent printmaking creates the space for personal responses within the complex and diverse world of graphic communication embracing and combining a variety of processes – etching, intaglio and relief, silkscreen and computerised painterly prints, lithography the collagraph and the monotype.

‘Triple Echo’ is a printmaking project and exchange initiative developed through the Colleges and Universities in the North West to encourage artists to cultivate their own personal themes and interests to create experimental and innovative artwork professionally presented in the public domain. Printmaking in the North West in recent years has developed a significant reputation for collaborative and cultural exchange projects, notable examples are ‘Artlab’ at UCLan and ‘Injured Text’ at Liverpool JMU. ‘Triple Echo’ seeks to build on these creative initiatives by facilitating opportunities for students and staffs in Art & Design to experience inter collegiate dialogue and professional exhibition opportunities.

                                                            GLOBAL ECHO

              ‘International Artists in Print’, a Collaborative Printmaking Initiative.

Global as a concept is not necessarily about nationality, geography or place but more a question of attitude, a political commitment, a strategy and ambition to explore significant social and cultural questions through creative practice, dialogue and forms of communication.
In 2008/ 2009 the Printmaking initiative ‘Triple Echo’ developed very interesting and exciting exhibition possibilities linking the Higher Education Institutions - UCLan, Liverpool JMU and Wirral Metropolitan College.
‘Triple Echo’ then received international validation by being invited to exhibit the work at ‘Impact’ International Printmaking Exhibition and Conference at the University of West of England and various Galleries in Bristol, September 2009i. This exhibition was very well received and the participation and dialogue with international practitioners has now produced ‘global’ connections we wish to develop as ‘Global Echo’.

Artists from the following institutions have expressed interest and commitment to develop ‘Global Echo’ through their various networks and connections:

University of Central Lancashire, Preston
Wirral Metropolitan College, Merseyside
Sheffield Hallam University
Edinburgh College of Art
Brigham Young University, Utah, USA,
Edith Cowan University, Perth, AUSTRALIA,
Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture, Karachi, PAKISTAN
Parsons School of Design / the University of New York, USA
Tama Art University, Tokyo, JAPAN
The Bauhaus, Dessau, GERMANY

The Project’s intention is to give artists opportunities to develop high quality work and to showcase and exhibit their work internationally. ‘Global Echo’ will create opportunities and new experiences by utilizing new and traditional technologies in Printmaking to demonstrate professionalism in the production and presentation of creative work.
The project will facilitate institutional opportunities by embracing interaction and dialogue with the differing international artists. It will give artists opportunities to debate and investigate contemporary strategies global artists use to disseminate their practice to contemporary audiences and discuss their work in relationship to other printmakers.

Discourse and Dialogue: writings, conference papers and gallery talks and presentations.

‘Eight Days A Week: Liverpool/Cologne a Cultural Exchange’,
Refereed conference paper presentation ‘Developments in contemporary printmaking, Liverpool/Köln cultural exchange Project’, ‘Kultur Kontakt’, Impact 4, International Printmaking Conference, Universitat der Kunst, Berlin and Kunst Akademie, Poznan, Poland published by the University of Tennessee2005.
Conference Website: www.utk.edu/~imprint

Pete Clarke and Neil Morris were invited as Keynote speakers at Impact – Kontakt Conference to make a research presentation exploring graphic arts traditions within the contemporary practice of printmaking. The Research Paper explored the collaborative nature of contemporary printmaking, international and cultural exchange projects within the European context of a diverse range of work produced as part of the international festival Eight Days a Week: Liverpool/Cologne Cultural Exchange.

The Conference paper was also developed from the Printmaking Residency Project ‘Injured Text’, facilitated by Pete Clarke and Neil Morris at Liverpool John Moores' University. The graphic arts work from ‘Injured Text’ by invited international artists was exhibited at the Victoria Gallery, University of Central Lancashire, Preston in March 2006, the Graphikwerkstatt, Cologne September 2006 and then Liverpool Art School as part of Independents, Biennial Liverpool October 2006 and was featured in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger.

Eight Days A Week and the Paintings of Pete Clarke are featured in ‘Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool & the Avant-Garde’, Tate Gallery Liverpool Edited by Christoph Grunenberg & Robert Knifton, Liverpool University Press 2007, ISBN 9781846310898.

Invited Tate Gallery Lectures

‘American abstraction’, Tate Gallery Liverpool 2000

‘Formal Situations’, Tate Gallery, Liverpool 2003

‘Rhinegold Art from Cologne’, Tate Gallery, Liverpool 2004

‘In Conversation with Mark Wallinger’, Tate Gallery, Liverpool 2005.

Invitations to Publish Essays
‘A-N for artists’, commissioned article Liverpool Biennial 2002

‘A-N for artists’, 6 commissioned articles, guest preview writer for August Edition 2004.

‘A-N for artists’, Past Modern, Amrit and Rabindra Singh, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, commissioned review 2005.

‘A-N for artists’,
Guest preview & commissioned essay writer for August Edition 2006.