Viewing articles tagged with 'Birmingham'

Grand Union, 19 Minerva Works, Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5RS

Mitra Saboury: Pulling Walls

Installation view, Mitra Saboury, Pulling Walls at Grand Union, 2016

Saboury utilises her own body to explore the landscape of Digbeth - an area of Birmingham’s industrial heritage, which is rapidly changing due to recent gentrification – through various sensory devices including touch, sound and taste. Review by Louisa Lee

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St Barnabas’ Church, High Street, Erdington, Birmingham B23 6SY

Tereza Buskova: Clipping the Church

Clipping the Church performance documentation

‘Clipping the Church’ demonstrated the transformations that communities naturally undergo, and ignited a much needed sense of what a unified community can be, when words are left aside in favour of a spirit of simple togetherness. Review by Dominika Mackiewicz

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Ikon, 1 Oozells St, Birmingham B1 2HS

Dan Flavin: It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else

Dan Flavin, It is what it is and it ain't nothing else. Installation view, Ikon Gallery (2016). Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon. © 2016 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Ikon building lends a somewhat cosy and domestic vibe to Flavin’s work, which I enjoy far more than some of the often starker forms of presentation in larger institutions. Indeed pairing, or starting a conversation, between Flavin’s work and Ikon’s former school house architecture is central to the exhibition’s design. Review by Sacha Waldron

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Grand Union, Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley St, Birmingham B5 5RS

They Are Here: Precarity Centre

Precarity Centre (Installation view)

Precarity Centre is an interdisciplinary framework and an experiment in social space rather than an exhibition. It sets out to be a much more fluid entity – one that is unfolding over time, has multiple points of access and a sense of precariousness to its content and form. Review by Anneka French

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Grand Union, Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley St, Birmingham B5 5RS

Emma Hart: big MOUTH

Radio Shame

big MOUTH actively questions the values of photography, just as it questions the making of objects through new works that draw from the nagging bodily anxieties of daily life. Review by Cathy Wade

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The New Art Gallery Walsall, Gallery Square, Walsall WS2 8LG | Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2ND

Mat Collishaw at The New Art Gallery Walsall and the Library of Birmingham

Mat Collishaw, All Things Fall, 2014

Mat Collishaw’s approach to art is filled with respect for the past. Victorian and Baroque cultures in particular are being constantly reiterated in his oeuvre, with the artist seemingly spellbound by their dubious character. Review by Dominika Mackiewicz

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Birmingham Open Media, 1 Dudley St, Birmingham B5 4EG

Fierce Festival, Davis Freeman: Karaoke(ART)

Karaoke(ART)

Karaoke(ART) activates video through invitation - for contemporary artists to reinterpret the available space of karaoke, to use it as they wish, to add, unbalance, distort or reveal truths that can be pulled from the undercurrents of their chosen song. Review by Cathy Wade.

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DanceXchange, Thorp St, Birmingham, West Midlands B5 4TB

Fierce Festival, Simone Aughterlony, Antonija Livingstone and Hahn Rowe: Supernatural

Supernatural

There is a power struggle between us, the audience, trying to fix our own meaning onto these multiplicitous bodies, and these bodies constantly tricking us, evading us, sending us on a wild goose-chase. The show teases us, castigating us lightly for trying to force the violence of our own perception and interpretation on these bodies. Louise Orwin responds to Supernatural.

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mac birmingham, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH

Atom Egoyan: Steenbeckett

Atom Egoyan, Steenbeckett, installation view at mac birmingham, 2015

Atom Egoyan, a Canadian film director renowned for his movies concerning themes of displacement and mechanisms of time and memory, has always been fascinated by Beckett and his pursuit to tackle the inexplicable within the brackets of language. Review by Dominika Mackiewicz

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