Peter Liversidge

Proposals for Huntly

For many artists, the proposal is one of the starting points in realising a project. For artist-in-residence Peter Liversidge, the medium –the proposal- is the message. Peter’s work begins in his kitchen table, sitting alone writing proposals on an old manual typewriter. These hand typed pages propose an array of possible and impossible ideas for performances and artworks. In a sense the first realisation of every work is in Liversidge’s head, then on the page, then in the mind of the reader, and finally (perhaps) as a physical object or happening. In every case, the first ‘artwork’ from any series of proposals is the bookwork that presents the collected ideas.

He writes a new set of proposals for each project, often geographically relevant to the venue, but really just putting his current, often bizarre ideas on paper, forming a body of work that acts as a window into a very active mind. Humour is key to his work, and his Proposal series, which has evolved over the past 10 years range from the impractical to the absurd, such as a project to fill one of Liversidge's own exhibitions with smoke so that the art is concealed behind a thick white mist. His work opens for the reader the realms of possibility.

“… the process is also about the notion of creativity: it’s important that some of the proposals are actually realized, but no more so that the others that remain only as text on a piece of A4 paper. In a sense they are all possible and the bookwork that collates the proposals allows the reader to curate their own show, and because of its size and scale the bookwork allows an individual to interact with each of the proposals on their own terms, one to one”.

Over the past few years Liversidge has worked in this way with an increasingly diverse body of institutions and places including: Proposals for Liverpool (Tate Gallery, 2008), Proposals for Barcelona (Centre d’art Santa Monica, 2007), Proposals for Brussels (with the British Council for the Europalia Festival, 2007), Proposals for Miami (Art Basel Miami, 2009) and Jupiter Proposals (Edinburgh’s sculpture park Jupiter Artland, 2009). Liversidge had a major solo show, THE THRILL OF IT ALL, at Ingleby Gallery in 2010.

Peter has sent some interesting proposals to the office, you can view these here.