Curtain Up – exploring the thrill of the live performance

‘Curtain Up’, a new exhibition at Lowry, Salford, brings together works from artists Simeon Barclay, Chris Paul Daniels, Denzil Forrester, Rowland Hill, Joy Labinjo, Ryan Mosley, Abigail Reynolds, Bridget Smith, and Ulla von Brandenburg, to explore the collective experience of being in an audience.

Leslie Kerwin visits the exhibition and meets curator, Zoe Watson to find out how she shining a spotlight on the shared thrill of live performance.

It was Émile Durkheim who first coined the term ‘collective effervescence’. The sociologist was fascinated by the sacred, powerful force of a crowd united by a shared anticipation: the rise from a pew, the soar of a football, the second before a performer sings. In the Lowry’s latest art exhibition, the eye of the spotlight is this time turned on the audience for an experience as unearthly as it is mind-twirlingly meta.  

Put together over several years by curator Zoe Watson. ‘Curtain Up’ is a multi-sensory exhibition that twists between several rooms. A maze of paintings, photographs, cinema, and participatory sculpture, the exhibition is a scrawling love letter to everyone who has ever had their heart swelled by a performance – or had the hairs on their neck stand on end. It features the work of a string of artists – including brand new works from Manchester-based artists Chris Paul Daniels and Rowland Hill, and award-winning German artist Ulla von Brandenburg – and sprawls across settings as diverse as red velvet theatres to clattering nightclubs.  

‘Curtain Up’ is much like a carnival ride: calm upon clambering onto, and quick to tilt into a brightly-lit frenzy of dreamlike sensation. The entryway galleries are carefully-placed to create a sense of wonder, featuring immense and somewhat liminal pieces from Bridget Smith and Ulla von Brandenburg that pull you into a theatre only minutes from opening its doors. A series of paintings by Denzil Forrester and Joy Labinjo bridge the rose-tinted nostalgias of community centre performances and thumping nightclubs, and the historic importance of local performances spaces is charmingly captured by collage artist Abigail Reynolds.  

Mere feet away from the soft whimsy of childhood memories, the deeper crevices of ‘Curtain Up’ unveil an edgier, moodier response to the theme of crowd anticipation. Chris Paul Daniels’ ‘Give Yourself a Round of Applause’ is a monologue built from the back-of-the-mind thoughts and feelings of a theatre audience, whose 15-minute film features footage sourced from the North West Film Archive. Meanwhile, Rowland Hill presents her biggest and most impressive installation to date: ‘Relic’, a dizzying audio-visual experience built from 14 years of documenting the Loughborough Fair – one of the oldest surviving medieval charter fairs – and uniquely, involves audience members in the piece itself during an unforgettable 12-minute loop.  

“All of these were artists I’d been following for a very long time, so I was really familiar with their work when I was thinking about the concept of the show,” says Watson.

“I realised that being in the Lowry sort of shapes the show. Every day, I’m seeing people come in and out of the building, and at different times of the day, there’s different activity in the building. But there’s always people in the space: that always inspired and influenced the show.  

“It’s a celebration of people, and a celebration of coming together collectively to experience things. I hope that people realise the power of that, and really protect these spaces that do amazing performances and things.”  

Diverse, nostalgic, and with an unshakeably ‘curiouser and curiouser’ feel, ‘Curtain Up’ is a delightfully meta experience built upon a unique and deeply human concept. With its mix of static and moving installations, this is an exhibition best digested slowly.

Remember to feel the anticipation – and enjoy the knowledge that you’re sharing it with your fellow visitors too.  

 Curtain Up is at Lowry, Salford, from 18 April to 21 June 2026.