The curators at Home, the new £25m arts complex in Manchester which opened earlier this month, say that exhibitions in its 500 sq. m gallery space will be interdisciplinary, linking with theatre, film and performance projects across the space.
The inaugural show, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (22 May-26 July), includes a series of new commissions by six artists including Basim Magdy of Egypt and Jeremy Bailey from Toronto. The exhibition, which features 11 artists in total, focuses on affairs of the heart and how people experience love and lust.
“Home is conceived as a cross-art form organisation; we commission, produce and envision the programme across theatre, film, visual art and performance. This [approach] was a starting point when thinking about our first show,” says Omar Kholeif, the exhibition co-curator.
The springboard for the launch exhibition is the 1932 play Kasimir and Karoline by Odon von Horvath, which tells of a tumultuous love affair against the backdrop of a fairground in Munich. The British playwright Simon Stephens presents a new version of the classic play, entitled Funfair, in the Home theatre.
“What you have in turn is a programme that stretches a single theme across multiple platforms and multiple media engaging a broad swathe of audiences. This is a strategy that anchors our three-year programme, where the whole organisation interlinks in unique ways across art forms,” Kholeif says.
The Manchester-based artist Gemma Parker is showing a new work, The Tattooed Lady (2015). “This is a 1900s-style penny arcade machine which dispenses tattoo transfers. Each transfer design is inspired by true tales of tattoos done for love but now regretted,” she says.
Jeremy Bailey’s new work inloop (2015), incorporates software that helps “us to live life to its fullest potential”, acting as an antidote to loss and depression.
Basim Magdy’s three pieces, including the film The Everyday Ritual of Solitude Hatching Monkeys (2014), were jointly commissioned by Home and the New York-based non-profit body Art in General. Meanwhile, the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson adds to the melancholic mood with his 11-metre long neon sign Scandinavian Pain (2006-12).
Home was formed by merging two of Manchester’s leading arts organisations, Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company, and is described as the biggest arts complex outside London. Its next show features the Beirut-based artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (12 September-1 November).