an invitation to a manchester modernist society tea party!

Sunday 19 July
An Invitation to the first Manchester modernist society tea party!

~being a most cordial invitation to a luncheon in the grass,

in the shadow of Gustav Metzger’s Flailing Trees,

Manchester Peace Gardens,
St Peter’s Square, Sunday 19 July from 2pm, and then on to Procession:
An exhibition at Cornerhouse, 4pm- 6pm.

Manchester is currently in festival fever with music, exhibitions and activities literally spilling out of the buildings and into the streets. It’s the perfect opportunity for even the most jaded of city dwellers to re-invigorate those humdrum routines, find new nooks and crannies lurking in the familiar and examine the everyday landscape we all too often take for granted with a more curious eye…

One of our personal favourite commissions is temporarily installed right here in the city centre. Here's the press release statement ~

‘Flailing trees is an arresting new piece of public art that will stand in the Manchester Peace Garden for the duration of the Festival. It comprises 21 inverted willows, a subversion of the natural order that brings nature and the environment into sharp focus. With flourishing branches replaced by dying roots, the sculpture is both a plea for reflection and a plaintive cry for change, and is sure to provide a catalyst for debate.’

What better way we thought to enjoy the dying embers of the festival and reflect on the installation’s poignant message before its removal to the Whitworth Art Gallery than with a spot of afternoon tea under its temporary shade; our own modest celebration echoing the doubtless more lavish Festival Feast taking place round the corner in the Albert Square pavilion!

Replete with tea, cake and conversation, we then propose a short meander to view the splendid Procession: An Exhibition, at Cornerhouse on Oxford Rd, which brings together a collection of objects from last Sunday’s Deansgate parade and attempts to contextualise the event within a local historical vernacular.

As the brochure says - Contemporary and old-fashioned, popular and obscure; don’t let Procession: An Exhibition pass you by…

So, do join us in our little celebration and reflections of the end of a magnificent festival in the space created between two remarkable public artworks that seem to us at mms to articulate the common links between much contemporary art practice and an emerging archaeology of the contemporary past.

RSVP….Parasols or umbrellas, deckchairs or plaid blankets, picnic paraphernalia and contributions of delicacies, sweet or savoury, most welcome…..