Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a bookshop, a bar and a café bar. Cornerhouse was operated by Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd, a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

The buildings

Cornerhouse occupied two buildings. The main building, 70 Oxford Street, was built for John Shaw in the early 1900s and was a furniture store run by the family until it closed in 1985. The building on the other side of the approach to Oxford Road station was designed by Peter Cummings, completed in 1934 and opened as a cinema, Tatler News Theatre, in May 1935. The cinema had numerous name changes (Essoldo, Tatler Classic, Tatler Cinema Club) before closing in 1981.

History

Cornerhouse Cinema in Manchester (7428498866)

Cornerhouse was conceived by the Greater Manchester Visual Arts Trust, chaired by Sir Bob Scott. It opened with the support of the then

Greater Manchester County Council The Greater Manchester County Council (GMCC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater Manchester from 1974 to 1986. A strategic authority, with responsibilities for roads, public transport, planning, emergency services ...

and

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three ...

, North West Arts Association (now part of

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

) and the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

. Cornerhouse's first Director was

Dewi Lewis Dewi Lewis (born 10 March 1951) is a Welsh publisher and curator of photography. Career In 1975, Lewis was the founding director of the Bury Metropolitan Arts Association which operates the Met. Lewis also founded and was the first director of ...

, who had previously been Director of Bury Metro Arts. The building opened on 3 October 1985. The first film screened (on 18 October) was

Nic Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg (; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing ''Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973), '' The Man Who Fell to Earth'' (1976) ...

's ''Insignificance''. Dave Moutrey has been Director and CEO since 1998. Since its inception, Cornerhouse has hosted the UK premiere of

Quentin Tarantino Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...

’s ''

Reservoir Dogs ''Reservoir Dogs'' is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunke ...

'' and was the first UK public gallery to commission work from

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

. In 2012, it was announced that Cornerhouse would merge with the Library Theatre Company to form

HOME A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

. In 2015, both organisations moved to new premises at the HOME centre. From March 2017 to August 2017 the Conerhouse Cinema was squatted by the Loose Space Collective before being evicted.

Programme

The Cornerhouse offered independent cinema, and contemporary art in the galleries. Cornerhouse's contemporary visual art programme was dedicated to launching artists who had not received major institutional recognition in Britain. It also let mid-career artists realise new projects in commissions and exhibitions on and off-site. The visual arts programme presented works in all media, with an emphasis on film and video that has a strong link with the film programme. Cornerhouse produced or co-produced all of its exhibitions as well as a programme for each show. A regular feature of its visual arts programme was international group exhibitions which explored socio-political concerns. In 2011, Cornerhouse launched Artist Film, a project for the production and distribution longer films, starting with

Gillian Wearing Gillian Wearing CBE, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English conceptual artist, one of the Young British Artists, and winner of the 1997 Turner Prize. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her ...

’s ''Self Made''. Cornerhouse was a partner in the plus Tate programme. On average, 30 titles were screened across the three screens every month. The cinemas were open seven days a week, with daily matinée and evening performances (no matinées on Monday), making a total of almost 3,500 screenings annually. Cornerhouse's film programme was international in scope and offered new and innovative film and video alongside more familiar work. This resulted in the screening of new films and re-releases; second runs of overlooked or underrated titles; classic and archive material; shorts, animation and documentary; avant garde film and television; and foreign language films. Alongside a variety of touring film programmes, Cornerhouse also ran two festivals every year ''¡Viva! Spanish''The ''¡Viva! Spanish'' website i
here
. and Latin American Film Festival and ''exposures''.The ''exposures'' website i
here

Books

In 1987, Dewi Lewis launched the Cornerhouse Publications imprint with ''A Green and Pleasant Land'' by John Davies. Cornerhouse Publications was joint winner of ''The Sunday Times'' Small Publisher of The Year Award in 1990. The imprint continued to be active until 1994 and over the period published books by many major international photographers.As examples:

Chris Steele-Perkins Christopher Horace Steele-Perkins (born 28 July 1947) is a British photographer and member of Magnum Photos, best known for his depictions of Africa, Afghanistan, England, Northern Ireland, and Japan. Life and career Steele-Perkins was born in ...

, ''The Pleasure Principle'' (1989, );

Nick Waplington Nick Waplington (born 1965) is a British artist and photographer. Many books of Waplington's work have been published, both self-published and through Aperture, Cornerhouse, Mack, Phaidon, and Trolley. His work has been shown in solo exhibition ...

, ''Living Room'' (1991, );

Bruce Gilden Bruce Gilden (born 1946) is an American street photographer. He is best known for his candid close-up photographs of people on the streets of New York City, using a flashgun. He has had various books of his work published, has received the Europea ...

, ''Facing New York'' (1992, );

Richard Misrach Richard Misrach (born 1949) is an American photographer. He has photographed the deserts of the American West, and pursued projects that document the changes in the natural environment that have been wrought by various man-made factors such as u ...

and

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

, ''Violent Legacies'' (1992, );

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...

, ''The Americans'', new ed. (1993, , ).

Notes

References

External links

* {{Manchester B&S Culture in Manchester Tourist attractions in Manchester Art museums and galleries in Manchester Former cinemas in Manchester Buildings and structures in Manchester Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom Visual arts publishing companies Distribution companies of the United Kingdom