Double Act: Art + Comedy: curated by David Campbell and Mark Durden, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (group exhibition)

Exhibition Dates: 09 Apr 2016 - 19 Jun 2016
Venue: The Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK

Bill Woodrow // Mel Brimfield // Peter Land // Common Culture // Bank // Gemma Marmalade // Jo Spence and Terry Dennett // Sarah Lucas // Maurice Doherty // Alex Bag // Thomas Geiger // David Sherry // Erica Eyres // Peter Finnemore // Kara Hearn // Pilvi Takala

Double Act: Art and Comedy explores how comedy helps us to shape meaning and negotiate the complexities of everyday life.

Humour is a way of binding people together: providing consolation, a sense of shared experience and a powerful weapon of resistance. But, what we find funny can also be cruel, hateful, establishing symbolic boundaries that divide people into distinct groups, setting those with power against those without.

The show draws together artists from diverse cultural and political contexts, each sharing an interest in humour as a resource to animate their art practice and to connect with an audience.

The exhibition curators, David Campbell and Mark Durden, are founding members of the artists’ group Common Culture and are currently studio holders at Bluecoat. This project stems from explorations in their own work of the comedic impulse within contemporary British culture. As the title suggests, the exhibition itself is a ‘double act’ and will be held at two venues, Bluecoat and MAC, Belfast (6 May - 31 Jul 2016), each featuring different works.