Ikon Gallery
1 Oozells Square
Brindleyplace
Birmingham
Birmingham
B1 2HS
England
Website
Telephone
Information
0121 248 0708
Ikon Shop
0121 248 0711
Café Ikon
0121 248 3226
Gallery hire
0121 248 0708
Fax
0121 248 0709
Ikon Gallery is an internationally acclaimed contemporary art venue situated in the refurbished neo-gothic Oozells Street School building in Brindleyplace, central Birmingham. Ikon shows a varied programme of exhibitions which change every two months, along with a series of talks, tours, workshops and seminars.
Venue Type:
Gallery
Additional info
Ikon Resource Room: Situated on the 2nd floor, the Resource Room is a public space offering interpretative material for main gallery exhibitions.
Ikon Shop: Ikon has an on-site specialist art bookshop plus an online shop at www.ikon-gallery.co.uk Opening times are Tuesday - Sunday 10.30am-6pm. Open during installation of exhibitions.
T: 0121 248 0711.
Café Ikon: an informal, modern Tapas bar. Opening times are Tuesday - Saturday 11am-11pm, Sunday 11am-6pm. Open during installation of exhibitions.T: 0121 248 3226.
Ikon Gallery Hire: If you are interested in hiring the Galleries or Events/Meeting Room for a private function or meeting please telephone Ikon Marketing on 0121 248 0708 for a copy of our brochure and current rates.
Access: Ikon Gallery aims to be fully accessible to disabled visitors. A wheelchair and audio guide are available on request. Guide dogs are welcome throughout the building. If you require assistance, please telephone 0121 248 0708 or ask at the reception desk.
Ikon shows a continuous programme of changing exhibitions both in the galleries and offsite. A variety of media are represented including sound, video, mixed media, photography, painting, sculpture and installation. As well as exhibitions in the gallery, exhibitions and projects also take place regularly in Ikon's Events Room and Tower room.
Collection details
Decorative and Applied Art, Film and Media, Fine Art, Photography
François Morellet
This exhibition by acclaimed French artist François Morellet (b. 1926) comprises a selection of paintings made in 2006 which replicate works originally produced by him in 1952, magnified to a scale of 4:1. They exemplify the profound influence of tapa on Morellet’s distinct style of abstraction, and visitors have an opportunity to compare them at Ikon through the simultaneous presentation of Tapa: Barkcloth paintings from the Pacific, in our first floor galleries.
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition priced £10, special exhibition price £8 and featuring texts by Morellet himself.
Born in Cholet, France, Morellet received no formal artistic training and taught himself to paint, his early works of the 1940s marked by semi-figurative painting and sculpture. Later, in the 1950s, he turned to abstract art, heralding a prolific and lengthy career characterised by simple geometric forms encompassing drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. Often using systems or rules to create compositions, Morellet’s work turns away from the conventional notions of inspired mark-making which are supposed to signify fine art, and it is this sensibility that made him susceptible to tapa.
This exhibition comprises a selection of works from his show Blow Up, Quand j’etais petit je ne faisais pas grand at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2007. This recent series, made more than fifty years after the original paintings, can be seen as an adaptation to fit a new cultural environment. As a gesture this series of paintings is completely in keeping with Morellet’s artistic proposition: it is repetition by an artist for whom repetition is a trade mark.
This exhibition is supported by Institut Français Royaume-Uni.
Suitable for
Admission
Free
Giorgio Sadotti THIS THIS MONSTER THIS THINGS
Since 2010, British artist Giorgio Sadotti has been assembling THIS THIS MONSTER THIS THINGS, an ‘exquisite corpse’ made from objects produced by fifty-one artist friends and acquaintances, most of whom have had an impact on Sadotti’s identity as an artist.
This process of gradual accumulation has resulted in a meta-artwork or a curatorial monster that mockingly presents a complete entity
a Frankensteinian self-portrait. The various elements of Sadotti’s figure are fitted onto a precisely engineered aluminium skeleton to present a character constructed from assorted media, including sculpture, two-dimensional materials such as painting and photography, neon and audio-visual
body parts.
These objects create a cacophony, which represent the different facets of the artist’s personality, as well as the varied ways of producing and interpreting figurative artworks. Among the remains are Simon Martin’s consciousness, which comes in the form of a real lemon, Georgina Starr’s brain made from bubble-gum and a tarot card, and Paul Noble’s spinning, hallucinogenic and multi-faceted left foot and toes hewn from polystyrene and plaster.
THIS THIS MONSTER THIS THINGS was commissioned and produced by Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea and includes work by Shahin Afrassiabi, Fiona Banner, Mark Beasley, Vanessa Billy, Roxane Borujerdi, Eleanor Brown and Loolie Habgood, David Burrows, Denna Cartamkhoob, Rachael Champion, Steven Claydon, Kelly Eginton, Laura Eldret, Graham Fagen, Karin Felbermayr, Ella Finer, Ceal Floyer, Freee, Neil Gall, Anya Gallaccio, Liam Gillick, Matt Hale, Matthew Higgs, The Hut Project, Alan Kane, Lisa Kirk, Elise Lammer and Lawrence Leaman, Mikael Larsson, Simon Liddiment, Raphael Linsi, Simon Martin, Fraser Muggeridge, Paul Noble, Carlos Noronha Feio, Stefano W. Pasquini, Elias Rediger, Audrey Reynolds, Sarina Scheidegger, Dina Schuepbach, Georgina Starr, Alexandra Stähli, Jemima Stehli, Jack Strange, Milly Thompson, Chris Watts and Elizabeth Wright.
Suitable for
Admission
Free
Tapa – Barkcloth paintings from the Pacific
Ikon presents the first major European gallery exhibition of tapa, the great painted barkcloths from the islands of the Pacific. For millenia, Pacific Islanders have made traditional cloth from the bark of trees. Often taking on ceremonial significance, its decoration is extraordinary, with patterns that
are enjoyed for their abstraction as much as their symbolism. Curated by Professor Nicholas Thomas, material for this exhibition is drawn from the worldclass collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, dating from the nineteenth century to the present day.
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition priced £10, special exhibition price £8 (this offer is only available in store). It includes an essay by Professor Nicholas Thomas.
Barkcloth is made by soaking and beating the inner bark of specific trees, most commonly the Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). Across the region, from New Guinea to Hawai’i, barkcloth has been decorated, in some places in the form of huge sheets featuring optically dynamic abstract patterns, while elsewhere barkcloth garments feature plant and animal life, sacred creatures and mythic narratives. Some barkcloths were wealth objects, spectacular fabrics many metres in width and length which operated as vital valuables, presented by one clan to another on great ceremonial occasions. Others marked sacred spaces, or were incorporated into
masks and other ritual assemblages. Cloth was often understood as a kind of skin, a powerful wrapping for the body which revealed its inner state and identity. Primarily created by women using inherited clan designs, the manufacture of barkcloth formed a major vehicle for both creative expression and social cohesion, maintaining and communicating the artists’ deep connection to their ancestors and country.
This exhibition includes cloths spanning over 200 years, from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific. Although the painted barkcloths collected by European museums have remained largely hidden from public view, the tradition remains alive in the Pacific. Ikon’s exhibition includes several works from the small Ömie community who live in the mountains of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. There, a remarkable group of women are adapting the ancient tradition to create work for the contemporary world.
Suitable for
Admission
Free
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