Tate Liverpool

16 December 2008 – 1 February 2009

Admission free

Supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation with additional support from Tate Liverpool Members and the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Learning programmes supported by PH Holt Charitable Trust and the Granada Foundation.

Press release: 21 July 2008

To mark the end of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, Tate Liverpool is proud to present a groundbreaking exhibition inspired by ideas and proposals from people across the city. The Fifth Floor presents major new works and commissions by fourteen internationally-renowned artists that respond to ideas and themes that have evolved out of discussions with individuals and groups based in Liverpool. The title of the exhibition refers to a floor that does not physically exist within Tate Liverpool’s four-storey building. While responding to ideas from people in the city, The Fifth Floor invites the visitor to reconsider the Gallery as a place of imagination and invention. In this way the exhibition celebrates ideas: the philosophical concept of the ‘Fifth Element’.

Through a comprehensive series of artist-led consultation workshops with groups of people from a range of backgrounds, Tate Liverpool posed the question “what kind of exhibition would you like to experience?” to the people of the city. A key finding was the idea of an exhibition created through the presence of people, summed up by one participant’s wish to “take away all the art and replace it with people, all kinds of people, eccentric people, to emulate what was there...”

A cross-departmental group at Tate Liverpool reflected on how these notions might be realised within the galleries, inviting internationally-renowned artists to apply their artistic practices to the peoples’ ideas. Throughout The Fifth Floor the Galleries will be transformed into spaces for encounter and collaboration, for exchanges of views, shared decisions and responsibilities, inviting us to rethink the roles of artist, curator and audience. The exhibition presents humorous, thoughtful and participatory installations in a range of media including video, photography, sculpture and drawing, whilst also providing tools enabling the audience to shape and direct the exhibition. The Fifth Floor will be further animated through an evolving programme of events and performances featuring visual artists, musicians, performers and groups from across the city, as well as various forms of community activity. This major exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in a world of boundless possibility. Open to all, and free for all.

Participating artists include Pawel Althamer (Poland), Olivier Bardin (France), Rineke Dijkstra (The Netherlands), Nina Edge (UK), International Festival (Sweden), Peter Liversidge (UK), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico), Dan Perjovschi (Romania), Paul Rooney (UK), Tino Sehgal (Germany), tenantspin (UK), Xijing Men (China/Japan/South Korea).

For further information and images please contact the Tate Liverpool Press Office:

Stacey Arnold        t: 0151 702 7444          e: stacey.arnold@tate.org.uk

Alex O’Neill            t: 0151 702 7445          e: alex.o’neill@tate.org.uk