Art Sheffield: Our Guide to What’s On

Find your way around the steel city with our recommendations for the Art Sheffield festival.

We’ve already written about the politically hued Art Sheffield but, as befits an art festival of its size, we thought we’d help guide you to its best bits with our picks of what’s on (with a couple of extra Sheffield tips along the way).

#1. Joseph Beuys & Zoe Beloff

The centrepiece of Art Sheffield, Wirtschaftswerte sets decaying food against Victorian paintings in order to pose questions about the value we place on art. Beloff’s film, props and storyboards, meanwhile, recreate a Brecht play with Occupy Wall Street activists. Both are contained within the Graves Gallery (whose current displays include work by Hew Locke and Bridget Riley). Graves Gallery, Surrey Street, S1 1XZ, Wed-Fri 10am-3pm, Sat 11am-4pm (closed Sun, Mon, Tue), until 14 December, FREE.

#2. Street art in & around Brown Street

Sheffield is a city unafraid of decorating its buildings with unusual adornments: portraits of David Attenborough, poetry, water features a-go-go and massive murals. There’s no one place to head to see Sheffield’s street art, though there’s a good smattering along Brown Street (where Site Gallery lives; we also recommend the fish finger sandwiches at the Rutland Arms here, sophisticated denizens of the art world that we are). Rutland Arms, 86 Brown Street, S1 2BS.

#3. Garth Evans & Mikhail Karikis

Two works in particular grabbed us at Site Gallery: one an archive piece, the other commissioned, both exploring the role of art in an industrial/post-industrial landscape. Evans’ sculptures chronicle his placement with the British Steel Corporation in 1969, while Karikis’ film tells of a community surrounding a decommissioned factory in Tuscany. Site also has a good (if small) art/design shop, teeny café and free Wifi. Site Gallery, 1 Brown Street, S1 2BS, Tue-Sat 11am-6pm, until 14 December, FREE

#4. Sheffield Print Fair

We are suckers for a print fair and this established version looks to be a good ‘un. Established by a group of like-minded printmakers and the city’s first such fair, it’s an affordable arena for purchasing and perusing brilliant, one-off (ish) print. St. Mary’s Church, Bramall Lane, S2 4QZ, 10am-4pm, Saturday 16 November, £1

#5. Ryan Mosley

Three of Mosley’s large-scale paintings are on display at S1 Artspace, a place that houses a gallery, artists’ studios and a sweet reading area that we could happily spend a few hours hanging out at. Revealing traces of Degas, Bacon and Toulouse-Lautrec, meanwhile, the predominantly male characters that inhabit Mosley’s paintings are inspired by a curious mix of folk law, the Wild West and the South Seas. S1 Artspace, 120 Trafalgar Street, S1 4JT, Tue-Sat 11am-6pm, until 14 December, FREE

#6. MADE NORTH

Our friends at Our Favourite Places told us in no uncertain terms that we HAD to visit this small graphic design, contemporary craft and product design space. Close to Site Gallery and housed within Yorkshire Artspace (purpose-built artists’ studios), the small gallery shows new work by emerging and established designer makers. The current exhibition by Craig Oldham celebrates the dying art of letter writing – it’s a simple idea, well executed. MADE NORTH, 21 Brown Street, S1 2BS, 12pm-6pm Wed-Fri, 11am-4pm Sat (closed Sun-Tue), FREE.

#7. Edgar Arceneaux

A new commission, this Art Sheffield film is a sci-fi surrealistic soundscape produced in collaboration with techno maestros, Underground Resistance. It’s housed in an industrial artists’ studios/production space in Shalesmoore, just outside the city centre. CADS, Snow Lane, S3 7AL, Tue-Sat 11am-6pm, until 14 December, FREE