ManchesterOnline

New Cross Art Exhibition @ Walrus

YOUR chance to support your fellow local creatives happens at Walrus Bar tonight when the New Cross Art Exhibition takes over the space to show work by its growing gang of members.

Stockport shows us some Mersey

NOW hidden beneath the the Merseyway Shopping Centre, it's surprisingly easy to forget that Stockport has one of the country's major rivers running through it.

Polluted by the silk, hat and cotton trades during the Industrial Revolution, the Stockport-stretch of the River Mersey suffered years of neglect until 20 years ago, when the council and Mersey Basin Campaign started to clean it up.

Beautiful Games at Gallery Oldham

OLYMPIC fever is still causing an audible buzz of excitement across the country, and amateur sporting facilities are experiencing a huge rise in interest across the sporting disciplines.

Last week, Manchester Velodrome was the third highest search result on Google. And so, CityLife thought you might all be looking for new ways to get your sport fix now the Olympics Games have closed.

Art for all at Beck's Fusions

BEFORE the music does the talking at next weekend's Beck's Fusions event in the Castlefield Arena, a celebration of creative art takes centre stage on Thursday.

Interactive installations and short films by the likes of Alan Bond, Peter Newman, Simon and Tom Bloor, Mark McGowan and the singing painter with the split personality, Bob and Roberta Smith, are included in the calendar, and there's a multitude of food stalls and bars to prop yourself up on into the wee hours.

Virtual art designed for digital age

IN his native Japan, Masaki Fujihata is recognised as a pioneer.

At the forefront of new media art in the early 1980s when many modern technologies were in their developmental stages, Fujihata was already investigating the limitations of computer graphics and animation as an art form.

Exhibition that's 25 years in making

"YESTERDAY is history," says Pauline Webb, collections manager at the Museum Of Science And Industry in Manchester.

She's referring to the fact that while many of the exhibits in MOSI's new 25th anniversary exhibition might still be fresh in the memory of most people in Greater Manchester, that doesn't make them any less relevant for a museum space.

The socialist illustrator's city vision

HE WAS a radical socialist with a utopian vision for Manchester, but Walter Crane is remembered more for his ornate children's books.

A long-term proponent of Crane's work, the Whitworth Art Gallery hopes its new exhibition, Art And Labour's Cause Is One: Walter Crane And Manchester, will lead to a wide-scale appraisal of Crane's legacy in the region.

Are we in a new Cold War?

EVENTS in Georgia suggest the West is in the throes of a new cold war with Russia.

Paul Taylor speaks to a Manchester-born author about the re-emergence of an old foe.

Tin can man of film

"I'M TAKING a tin opener to history," says artist Shezad Dawood as we talk about his latest art project - his 55-minute movie Feature, a 'zombie Western opera in homage to Samuel Beckett'.

"History and culture are such linear things, hence this desire to mix things up. History can be so much what you make it."

A tale to raise the eyebrows

ANTHONY Scally had few expectations for the book he wrote about living with paranoid schizophrenia. But today it is cult reading among patients, a must-see text for mental health professionals and a fixture on students' reading lists, writes Paul Taylor.

Tribute to Life On Mars

PICKING up where the successful BBC1 detective series left off, Life On Mars (now open at Stockport Art Gallery ) includes 30 huge canvasses from the detective series.

The exhibition also documents the making of the award-winning programme by examining the importance of the the region's creative industries.

The spray for today

A NUISANCE or a misunderstood art form? A bad habit to relieve the boredom or a potential career path?

Street art continues to be all of these things, but its recognition - thanks in part to the work of guerrilla graffiti artist Banksy - has turned it into a respected form of artistic expression.

Being the new Dahl is Child's play

SHE dreamed of being an air hostess but instead Lauren Child has become a literary icon..

Now, 17 books in, Lauren's career is about to step up another notch as she becomes the subject of Manchester Art Gallery's summer exhibition.

Up close and very personal

FROM showbusiness legends to hard-hitting photojournalism, the Photographic Portrait Prize has it covered, writes Sarah Walters.

A number of entries will be on show at The Lowry until September 21.

Solo show for Gwon

WHEN Gwon Osang unveiled his photographic sculptures at the Asia Triennial earlier this year, they were the talk of the festival.

But it turns out the two pieces - including one of 808 State's Graham Massey - were just the canapés.

The main course is his solo show at Manchester Art Gallery - Deodorant Type - which opens on Saturday and features 14 life-sized sculptures, several newly commissioned for the exhibition.

Saying it within flowers

A ROSE by any other name is still as sweet, but in the hands of Asian artist Tsang Kin-Wah, the ancient symbol of love can hide an ugly message.

A leading text artist, Tsang creates snaking displays of unending sentences that symbolically wind their way around the gallery walls. But for his UK debut - What Are You Looking At? at the Chinese Arts Centre - his meandering thoughts have wandered out of the gallery confines and into the privacy of the powder room.

A natural inclination

FOR centuries, potters have sought to replicate the shapes, textures and behaviour of the living world, producing tactile interpretations of nature.

"Nature is the single most important influence," says Gallery Oldham's senior curator Dinah Winch, discussing the gallery's latest big exhibition.

Breathing new life into Lowry

THE paintings of Laurence Stephen Lowry popularly evoke life in the north west as clearly as any gritty plot from Coronation Street.

Lowry’s grim mill backgrounds, teeming matchstick men and portraits of working class living are familiar to generations.

Manga the magnificent

SEXUALITY to Shakespeare: there isn't a topic that Manga comic writers are afraid to explore.

And it is perhaps the secret to the comic genre's success; while the roots of Manga date back hundreds of years, it exploded as a popular form of graphic novel in Japan post-Second World War after adopting an all-ages approach.

Welcome to garden of secret treasures

TATTON Park has been a popular spot on a sunny day since it was bequeathed by Lord Egerton to the National Trust in 1960.

As the years have gone on, so have its attractions increased and formerly private buildings opened up. But nothing draws the crowds from further afield than Tatton's collection of themed gardens.

2,000-year-old murder?

HOW Lindow Man died in 50AD is one of archaeology's great mysteries.

Now his remains are on display in Manchester.

The Irony of Flatness @ Bury Art Gallery

DECEPTION, illusion and interpretation are three of the most useful tools for an artist: whether that's for creating faces of fictional characters and gods, giving illusions of space or depth where it does not exist, or even occasionally pulling the wool over our eyes.

Finding humour amid the horrors

A NEW exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North uses the gut-wrenching guffaws of the Horrible Histories books to bring one of the worst periods of human conflict to life.

It's a collaboration between the Salford museum and Horrible Histories' Frightful First World War author Terry Deary and illustrator Martin Brown.

Celebrating Olympic history

THE controversial attacks on the Olympic torch relay as it travelled through London, Paris and America and the Beijing fog have done their best to conspire against a glorious Olympic event this year.

Browne's controversy masterclass

CONTROVERSY and art have long been natural bedfellows. It's a view Mancunian painter Michael J Browne shares - and one he is happy to spend time debating.

As we chat in the sun-soaked beer garden of Orlando's in Chorlton, he shows me a number of projects he's currently considering hanging in the bar. Some are still in development, others are snapshots of works past: study photographs of footballers, boxers and himself.

Signs of changing times

SEVEN years of salvaging is paying dividends for Manchester artist Andrea Booker.

"Not everything I reclaim is useable," says Andrea, the winner of this year's Cube Open, "but I will have anything I can, in case it has a use in the future."

Revamp suits mood at Cafe

IF like CityLife you laughed yourselves sick when the Arctic Monkeys turned up at this year's Brit Awards wearing the tweed attire of well-to-do country gentlemen, you'll be pleased to know that they've found their way on to a wall in Manchester.

Having made several new additions to its massive memorabilia archive of more than 70,000 items, Hard Rock Cafe has decided to display the suits at its newly refurbished Printworks restaurant alongside a host of other newly-acquired collectables.

Art of the beautiful game

AS symbols of Britishness go, football is up there alongside the Union Jack and the Houses of Parliament, or the Royal Family and The Beatles.

From the Premiership to the amateur leagues, there's barely a town or city in the UK that does not boast its own football team.

And this year, it's 100 years since the Professional Footballers Association was formed in the north west to create the world's first professional group for sportsmen.

The art of survival

FOR artist Chris Cyprus everything in the garden is coming up roses.

The 37 year-old from Mossley, near Ashton under Lyne, is `obsessed' with painting pictures of allotments and garden sheds, and this seemingly mundane subject has won him national recognition.

Michael and a work in progress

CONTROVERSIAL artist Michael Browne is displaying his work-in-progress at Chorlton café-bar and comedy club, Orlando's.

Michael is famed for his painting, The Art Of The Game, which depicted Eric Cantona as Jesus, and caused huge controversy in the late nineties.

Street art comes in from cold

"IN some ways, it's a bit like Prohibition in America - because they have banned street art, they have sent it underground. Even if they put the death sentence on street art, people would still do it," said Jon Winstanley, co-owner of Upper Space.

But Jon, 27, and co-owners Barney Francis, 24, and Ryan Hunn, 23, believe their gallery will reinvigorate the genre and transform the fortunes of the artists, who have had a well-documented struggle to find places to create.

Squire schedules Oldham exhibition

MUCH to thousands of Stone Roses’ fans dismay, the seminal band’s enigmatic guitarist John Squire has turned his back on music for good it seems, putting pay to any lingering hopes of a dramatic reunion.

Instead Squire is now ploughing all his energies into his other lifelong passion – art.

What the Romans really did for us Brits

CONQUERING tyrants they may have been, but it's hard to imagine what Britain might have been like today if it hadn't been for the Romans. There'd probably be no indoor plumbing for a start. Ghastly. One person who's spent time looking at the Roman people with wonder and sympathy - and endless fascination - is author Simon Young.

Turning down Nicole

AS a first-time fiction writer, it's not the kind of thing you're led to expect: Nicole Kidman personally ringing to ask you to change your story so that she can play the main character in the film version. No wonder Steven Hall, Glossop's latest literary luminary, is determined to remain cagey about it. Gentlemen, of course, don't chat and tell where A-list celebrities are concerned.

Shape up on your statues

THEY are the faces of statesmen and heroes passed by thousands every day. But how many visitors to Manchester would be able to put a name to the men and women immortalised in statues and monuments?

Manchester arts online: Your essential guide

THE visual arts scene in Greater Manchester is an exciting and varied one and this online guide aims to help you find out more.