THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS | HOME | 22 May to Sun 26 Jul
Part of the HOME warming weekend (21-25 May) which will see visitors welcomed to Manchester's new £25m arts centre with a funfair-themed opening celebration curated by HOME patron and London 2012 artistic director, Danny Boyle. The first in a year of visual art exploring the theme of 'Transactions of Desire', this opening exhibition tackles heartbreak, loss and the dark side of the fairground.
ARTISTS IN THE FRAME | Manchester Art Gallery | 21 May to 31 Aug
This exhibition spanning over 300 years and featuring paintings, photographs and digital work includes self-portraits by artists including William Hogarth, Grayson Perry, Angelica Kauffman and Anthony van Dyck - one of Europe's greatest ever portraitists.
THOMAS SCHÜTTE | The Whitworth | Until 19 Jul 2015
A series of 139 copper plate etchings comprise Low Tide Wandering, a visual diary (of sorts) kept by celebrated German-artist Thomas Schütte over the course of a year. The drawings range from quirky portraits to views of the sea suspended and un-framed in the gallery space like socks from a washing line.
LI BINYUAN | CFCCA | 14 May
Part of the wider Manchester After Hours series of events on 14 May, Beijing-based performance artist Li Binyuan will enact his ground-breaking (quite literally) and physically exhausting performance, Deathless Love, which sees him smash over 100 hammers on a concrete plinth. No open-toe shoes.
TINA HAGE | OBJECT / A | Until 23 May 2015
Formerly the Untitled Gallery, this contemporary arts space beneath the Friends' Meeting House on Mount Street currently houses the latest series of works by London-based Goldsmiths-graduate, Tina Hage. The Place Here plays with the context of a photograph's capture and it's consumption by the viewer by reconstructing scenes into a new landscape.
VIDEO JAM | MOSI | 14 May
The team from Video Jam, an ongoing series of experimental film and sound events, will join the Manchester After Dark melee on 14 May with an event at the MOSI which will see them uncover and edit moving footage from the archives and weave it into the live sounds of the museum's engines and looms in the Textile Gallery.
DIGEST THE ELECTION | People History Museum | 8 May
As part of a wider series of events to mark the 2015 UK general election, the People's History Museum will be opening early to welcome academics, students and political nerds in for breakfast to watch the election results and discuss the outcomes... or stay in bed and wait for it all to blow over.
WELLCOME IMAGE AWARDS 2015 | MOSI | 19 Mar to 1 Mar
The Museum of Science and Industry is for the second year running one of very few UK science venues selected by the Wellcome Trust to showcase the twenty winning entries from this year's Wellcome Image Awards. Come closer to a greenfly's eye, the tongue of a cat, and drug-carrying particles in the lungs of a mouse.
CLEMENS WILHELM | CFCCA | Until 21 Jun
Wilhelm's video SIMULACRA was shot in the 'Window of the World' Entertainment Park in Shenzhen, China, a replica theme park in which you can visit 140 of the world's most famous landmarks in around an hour. Wilhelms observes the seemingly absurd moments of Chinese tourists posing in a world which appears to have shrunk.
SIR ANDREW MOTION | IWM North | 14 May
Former-Poet Laureate (1999 to 2009) Sir Andrew Motion will perform a specially created new work in a one-off, intimate performance at the culmination of 'A Conversation With' event hosted by BBC Radio 4 presenter Dame Jenni Murphy. His new poem, inspired by objects and stories in IWM’s collections, reflects on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
