Manchester Open Exhibition 2024 – Teapots R Us
The Exhibition is the biggest celebration of Greater Manchester’s creative talent. Artwork by Out In The City members was presented alongside approximately 480 other amazing and unique artworks. We presented a series of ceramic teapots – “Teapots R Us”.
On Thursday, 8 February Out In The City members visited the Exhibition.
The work will be exhibited in HOME’s Gallery from Saturday 3 February to Sunday 28 April 2024. There are artist’s talks and relaxed visiting times – check the HOME website for details.
You can vote for your three favourite artworks – our teapots are number 136. If you visit the exhibition, please vote for us!
You can also download the guide here and see more photos here.
Did AI Ruin Keith Haring’s Work?
Credit: Keith Haring and @DonnellVillager / X (Twitter)
When an X user posted an altered image of Keith Haring’s famous Unfinished Painting last month, it caused a controversy.
Despite the post’s tens of thousands of likes, the backlash of negative comments accounted for the incident’s ensuing media attention. Replies to the post referred to the altered image as disrespectful, abhorrent and even vile. The issue, multifaceted as it was, revolved around the fact that the post’s creator, a user who goes by Donnell, claimed to have “completed” Haring’s intentionally uncompleted work with the aid of AI generation.
Haring’s original Unfinished Painting shows a series of the queer artist’s iconic figures in fluid yet sporadic movement. These figures and the vibrant background beneath them, however, cover only the upper left-hand corner of the canvas. The rest has been left blank, save for a handful of drips that cross over from above. Painted in 1989, just a year before Haring’s death, the canvas’s empty space, according to curator William Poundstone, was intended as “a surrogate for the artist’s AIDS-shortened career.” As many critics of Donnell’s post have suggested, finishing the piece with generative AI certainly works against the original painting’s message.
Defenders of the post are quick to point out Haring’s frequent mantra – that art is for everybody. Haring went to great lengths to make his work more accessible. He was known for his subway drawings, works hurriedly executed on the black paper panels that were used as placeholders for advertisements. In the 1980s, he was arrested a number of times for these creative acts, which were legally regarded as vandalism. Yet, at the same time that Haring was sneaking through the New York subway system, his work was appearing in solo gallery exhibitions where he was effectively able to break down distinctions between what was thought of as high and low art. Haring, too, was known for giving away posters he’d made for free.
Breathtaking Hypocrisy of UK Deportation Policy
The Home Office says Rwanda is not a safe country but the government is still hell-bent on deporting asylum seekers there
Despite Rwandans being granted refugee status in Britain, the UK government still insists it’s safe to deport asylum seekers there.
Four Rwandans have recently been granted refugee status in Britain over “well-founded” fears of persecution, as Rishi Sunak pushes forward with legislation aimed at declaring the country a safe destination for asylum seekers.
The details of the cases are in addition to the six people who Home Office figures suggest had UK asylum applications approved between April 2022 and September 2023.
While homosexuality is no longer criminalised in Rwanda, same-sex sexual relations is still seen as a taboo issue – public attitudes towards LGBT+ people are not kind.
Even the UK government’s own website acknowledges that homosexuality is “frowned on” by many in Rwanda and that LGBT+ people may experience “discrimination and abuse, including from local authorities.”
In June 2022, a gay man from Uganda told Africa News that he was “beaten terribly” in Rwanda for being gay, while a trans woman told the publication: “I cannot go anywhere or apply for a job. Not because I am not capable of that, but because of who I am.”
Happy Valentine’s Day! from Out In The City to YOU!
Queerchester – a Gay Odyssey Through Queer Manchester
Queerchester tells the story of gay Manchester UK, from the early beginnings of secretive hidden away gay bars through to the new emerging 1970’s and 80’s scene only to be hampered by the police chief, the AIDS crisis and Clause 28.
It shows how Manchester fought back to reclaim its identity once more as an open minded and forward looking city which embraced the new 90’s Queer culture with clubs such as The Number 1 club, Flesh, The Hacienda, Manto bar, Danceteria and Paradise Factory.
It features interviews with DJ’s and club owners and David Hoyle … DJ Paulette … Murray & Vern fetish fashion wear … Kate O’Donnell … poet Gerry Potter … author Mark Ovenden … the list goes on!!
Out in the City 