2005
black masking tape, watercolour, paper
20.2 x 20cm paper size
This was Liversidge's first solo exhibition at Ingleby Gallery, and the first substantial showing of the artist's work in Scotland. In one gallery were paintings and installations relating to his enduring fascination with the North Montana Plains, and in the second, a large group of works on paper which offered a sideways look at our perceptions of the world of advertising logos and objects of retail desire. Towards the end of the exhibition a wall of photographs electronically relayed from Switzerland also documented Liversidge's daily performances from Art Basel 38 as his 'Fair Proposals' began their assault on that city.
One of the more anarchic highlights of last summer's Edinburgh Art Festival was Peter Liversidge's 'Festival Proposals' - a multifarious smorgasbord of happenings and performances that Liversidge inflicted on the city in the name of conceptual art. He was, according to the press: "The Lord of misrule at a feast of fools [The Scotsman 01/08/2006] and: [it was ] "the closest yet that this Festival has come to its original aim of having artists interact with the city. It is the art of daring to dream. The art of possibility. The art of making us see beyond the everyday" [Scotland on Sunday 06/08/2006].
Beyond the merry mayhem of these ideas Peter Liversidge is a serious and diverse artist. He has made work in almost every conceivable medium including drawing, performance, installation, painting, sculpture, intervention, artist books and multiples. Whilst the forms his art takes are disparate, each embodies his enduring fascination with ideas and the bounds of our imagination, exploring the gulf that exists between expectation and reality. Humour and a kind of playfulness permeate much of his work, and this charming hook pulls its audience into an uncertain world, where fundamental questions are being quietly asked.
