Oded Hirsch Installation Commissioned For Liverpool Biennial

Oded Hirsch, an Israeli artist who works primarily in video and photography launches his project for the Liverpool Biennial in September. This commission is the first time he has produced a public realm installation, continuing the Biennial's tradition of commissioning artwork for public spaces.

Linking the London 2012 Festival with the UK’s biennial of international contemporary art, Liverpool Biennial presents a sculptural intervention in the heart of Liverpool’s shopping district, Liverpool ONE. Hinting at a mysterious subterranean world emerging abruptly through the city's streets, this unexpected and unexplained sculptural presence disrupts the experience of shoppers and passersby alike. It will ask questions about how we negotiate concealed spaces.

This commission is part of Liverpool Biennial 2012 – the UK Biennial of international contemporary art. Liverpool Biennial unfolds through a series of exhibitions and projects that attracts over 600,000 visitors.

For the Olympic year, Liverpool Biennial will explore the theme of hospitality. Hospitality is the welcome we extend to strangers – an attitude and a code of conduct fundamental to civilisation, as well as a metaphor that suggests conditions and energies that inspire artists. Liverpool Biennial 2012 invites artists and thinkers to bring forth new understandings of hospitality for our increasingly globalised and complex times.

Oded Hirsch was born in1976 on the Kibbutz Afikim. He currently lives and works in New York. In 2011-12 he was the recipient of the Six Points Fellowship and a recent winner of a Jerome Foundation film grant. He received a B.A. from the Academy of Design Wizo, Haifa and his M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Hirsch's work examines the effects of ideologies on collective and individual behavior. Working primarily in video and photography, he creates surreal mechanisms that consist of independent sets of rules and logic. Hirsch's work has been exhibited at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA; Zinebi, Bilbao; the Jewish Museum, Munich; Queens Museum, New York; HVCCA, Peekskill, New York; EDS Gallery, Mexico City; and Ramat Gan Museum of Art, Israel. He is represented by Thierry Goldberg Projects, New York.

8 Sep 2012 - 25 Nov 2012

Artist Oded Hirsch presents an artwork that bursts through the ground of Liverpool ONE.