‘The Alchemy Between Us’
Tate Exchange, at Tate Liverpool (1st floor gallery)
Thursday 15 December, 12.30 till 2.30 pm

‘The Alchemy Between Us’ is an exhibition and series of events hosted by Laurence Payot in Tate Exchange, inviting gallery visitors and invited guests, scientists, artists, philosophers, writers to explore the invisible exchanges traded between artists and people through the medium of the artwork.

For this 3rd open discussion taking place in the gallery, “What happens in the process of creation-reception?”, Laurence Payot will initiate an open discussion exploring the magical, intangible and emotional ‘elements’ passed between artists and viewers. Participatory artworks can be said to share the same precarity as the sorcerer’s conjuring of a spell, or an alchemist’s attempt to change the properties of a substance: there is no guarantee that it will work or that it will have the desired effect. Building on a recent collaboration with art historian Dr Lara Eggleton that proposes productive analogies between art, alchemy and magic, this session invites artists, writers and students to explore the relationship between production and reception, and the generative spaces between them. Inspired by the affective power of Renaissance paintings, Payot will share her interest in the transmission and translation of emotion from artist to viewer through the artwork. In the context of participatory practice, how can this transaction be understood as even more immediate and transformative?

13 December : Why do artworks need people?
15 December: Art as Symbiosis