British Art: 1880-1950 @ Walker & Knowledge Lives Everywhere @ FACT

Recently it’s seemed like nearly everything is geared towards children and their keepers. I’ve known since I started writing this blog that if I was chronicling my ongoing adventures with a small creature that had escaped from my womb, I’d be giddy with the fumes of incoming links.

I guess it makes sense, I think there are more of them than me. The yummy mummies undoubtedly outnumber the misanthropic singletons, or perhaps they just carry more legislative weight?

Tonight I’ve been to two very different new exhibitions in Liverpool, both of which are decidedly family friendly.

The Walkers new room, British Art: 1880-1950, makes brilliant use of the neglected space beyond their displays Victorian and Impressionist art. Showcasing some wonderful paintings by luminaries such as Jacob Epstein, LS Lowry and Lucian Freud, the display includes a particulary beautiful painting by Paul Nash, a long standing favourite of mine.

Together with complementary lighting and a sympathetic hang, there’s enough interactive claptrap to entertain the young and those who don’t have the attention span to simply enjoy looking at art. Usually I’d be vehmently against this kind of thing, but it is discreetly and well implemented enough not to distract from what is most important in the room - a fantastic, and very impressive, selection of British painting.

The British Art: 1880-1950 room in progress, from National Museums Liverpool 

If you have neither children nor a well developed sense of social responsibility, Knowledge Lives Everywhere, the new exhibition at FACT, probably isn’t for you.

Downstairs a series of stridently playful interactive installations set the mood, highlighting the work of seven groups that work with FACT. I wouldn't say there was anything wrong with them, other than purely not being to my taste. I like art that seductive invites engagement, not demands participation to be appreciated. It feels like an invasion of my intellectual space.

Despite some flimsy rhetoric, as timely platform to publicise their community work, and to anchor their gallery space within that programme, it’s probably a great success for FACT... but as art its all a bit meh.