Art or not art?

Angie Sammons 4 July 2014

It's the day you've all been waiting for for two years. The Liverpool Biennial 2014. AKA: A Needle Walks Into a Haystack, opens today.

There's whimsy with Whistler down at the Bluecoat, there's documentary maker Sharon Lockhart's weird preoccupation with a Polish girl at FACT. Old bluesers, poets and dreamers can step into the late and lovely Adrian Henri's world at the LJMU John Lennon Art School building on Brownlow Hill and there's even some public engagement at the Dazzle Ship on Mann Island.

Meanwhile, at the Tate, there is a commission by French architect Claude Parent who has created lots of ramps to walk up and down to “ensure the audience experiences the museum anew”.

But never mind all that. At the heart of the Liverpool Biennial is the Group Show of newly commissioned works by artists from all over the world.

It's taking place in what is known as the Old Blind School these days, but everybody knows as the Merseyside Trades Union and Unemployed Resource Centre.

With the original Picket across the courtyard and once the Hope Street Police Station, the entire complex of buildings has been mothballed for donkeys years. Where once the Red Flag flew now there is only flaking plaster amid, it has to be said, some very nice original features waiting to be restored by the latest careful owners, The Hope Street Hotel.

There are seven artists exhibiting: Uri Aran, Marc Bauer, Bonny Camplin, Chris Evans, Rana Hamadeh, Louise Herve and Chloe Maillet and Judith Hopf, if you must know.

There is a lot to take in and it takes at least an hour to get around.

Here are several pictures up of objects you can encounter in the building.

Aha, but which is art and which is not art? Are you cultured and clued up or just an embarrassing philistine? Answers at the end.

a) Art Or Not Art?