Gallery airs grievances in new exhibition

Static Gallery in Liverpool is taking a direct approach to asking visitors to help it with its debts, following a sequence of costly disputes with Liverpool City Council. A new exhibition, Debt Machine, addresses the gallery’s financial situation and asks whether there has been “an orchestrated campaign by elements within Liverpool City Council to destabilize Static Gallery since its 2008 Noodle Bar project”.

Noodle Bar was an art installation and a fully operational noodle bar, set-up in a shipping container connected to the front of the gallery. Static did not seek planning permission for the installation, resulting in a nine month legal dispute with Liverpool City Council Planning Control. The gallery’s struggles have been compounded by a Noise Abatement Notice issued in November 2011, which put an end to its live music events; and the local authority’s decision in August 2012 to refuse the gallery discretionary business rates relief, despite the gallery having been granted the relief since 2003.

A car park style control point at the entrance of the exhibition charges visitors in relation to the length of their stay, giving the public a choice as to how much of the gallery’s debt they wish to pay off.