Clearly the architects didn’t get the message that Manchester’s new arts venue Factory International has been renamed, boringly, as Aviva Studios. Because despite the new moniker I can still picture its ultimate inspiration, Tony Wilson, regional TV reporter and founder of the city’s legendary Factory Records, standing on the raised viewing platform in its colossal space, the Warehouse, pretending to be Andy Warhol, looking down on tiny people dwarfed by multicoloured inflatable artworks, pleased that Manchester has finally turned into his fantasy version of Warhol’s New York.
The Warehouse is a monster of a room that seems to have been inspired by staring at the enigmatic covers of Factory Records LPs while listening to Joy Division. It is an enormous industrial cavern with giant steel doors and towering, shadowy dimensions that appears equally capable of hosting art, gigs or a club. Yayoi Kusama’s opening event You, Me and the Balloons has aspects of all three. The 94-year-old pink-haired artist appears on a screen chanting above a forest of luminous purple tentacles. In front of this loom a gargantuan orange pumpkin, a giant statue that resembles Kusama with a skirt made of fat fingers, yapping dogs and lurid clouds.
