Emerging artists showcase new art at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
New Art West Midlands 2016
Recent art graduates from across the West Midlands are getting the chance to display their artwork to an international audience in one of the region’s top galleries, in a new exhibition now open in the Waterhall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. It is one of a series of four exhibitions for New Art West Midlands 2016, organised by Turning Point West Midlands, the largest partnership of its kind in England promoting and developing contemporary art in the region.
Amongst the artists featured in the series of exhibitions - all recent graduates from the region’s five University art schools - are the five prize-winning artists Matt Parker, Kiriaki Hajilozis, Kyle Cartlidge, Jakki Carey and Aaron Sehmar, who were each presented with £1000 cash as part of New Art West Midlands 2016 to support their future careers.
“This is an unrivalled opportunity for emerging artists to showcase their artwork – never seen before - to a large audience,” explains Lisa Beauchamp, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art who brought together the New Art West Midlands 2016 exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. “The high quality and thought-provoking work included in New Art West Midlands 2016 is a testament to the exciting talent that is coming out of the West Midlands now.”
New Art West Midlands is displayed across four venues and showcases the work of 43 up-and-coming artists, who have all graduated in the last three years from either Birmingham City University, University of Wolverhampton, University of Worcester, Staffordshire University, and Coventry University. They were chosen by an esteemed panel of leading figures in the art world, two of whom have connections to the West Midlands. The selectors were artist, academic and former Stourbridge College of Art graduate Sonia Boyce, Worcester born and internationally renowned artist John Stezaker, and Katherine Stout, Head of Programme at ICA, London.
Artworks by sixteen of the artists - in media including sculpture, installation, film, painting, print and photography - can be seen at the Waterhall. The mix of artworks includes references to Brutalist architecture and Birmingham’s old central library, and themes of consumerism, climate change, and contemporary revisions of traditional genres such as still life and the female nude in art.
Visitors will have an opportunity to see the 2016 exhibition in the Waterhall until Sunday 15 May 2016, with highlights including:
- A series of three photographic prints by Laura Haycock entitled ‘A Homage to Venus’. These captivating self-portraits, taken in the style of Velazquez’s 17th-century oil paintings, raise poignant questions about the portrayal of the female body throughout history.
- A film by Worcester graduates ‘Sister’ entitled ‘La Communaute’ blends images of temporary housing units in Diglis in Worcester to create a gripping narrative on what they identify as a post-socialist era.
- Ally Standing’s striking photographs capture aspects of Birmingham’s architectural legacy and specifically refer to the current fragmented state of Birmingham’s old central library.
- New approaches to sculpture are explored by Jack Marder’s striking mixed media installation E901210. Marder’s candy coloured installation includes items such as Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, a Katie Price book and a pink stiletto heel to comment on the gluttony of excess, and the creation of a new E number for the prestigious LA zip-code.
- Different artworks by some of the artists are shown across more than one of the exhibiting venues, enabling visitors to view more of their work and explore the wealth of talent by all 43 of the artists chosen for this year’s New Art West Midlands 2016. Other venues participating in New Art West Midlands include mac Birmingham, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and the Herbert Gallery & Museum.
Lisa adds: “Birmingham Museums Trust are committed to supporting cutting-edge contemporary artists, so we feel privileged to be working with Turning Point West Midlands to showcase the next generation of Britain’s artists. Previous winners of New Art West Midlands, now in its fourth year, have found a place in Birmingham’s permanent collection and have also been acquired for the Arts Council Collection. For an artist, having your work in a public collection is a big deal. It’s only through initiatives like New Art West Midlands that these artists’ talents and work can be showcased, giving them that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s Waterhall is fast becoming a hub for modern and contemporary art, and it is hugely exciting to display these works by artists who may well be household names further down the line. The building itself was at the cutting edge of Victorian design, and with white walls creates a wonderful gallery for these contemporary pieces.”
The New Art West Midlands exhibition comes at an exciting time for modern and contemporary art at Birmingham Museums Trust, as it follows the announcement that the Trust has been designated a National Partner of the Arts Council Collection. Under the initiative, the Trust’s museums and galleries will host a series of major exhibitions over the next three years, featuring artworks from the Arts Council’s own collection, alongside Birmingham’s multi-disciplinary collection. This includes plans to feature artworks by artists from the West Midlands alongside major artworks by those artists in the Arts Council Collection, who we now class as household names.
For more information, please visit www.birminghammuseums.org.uk
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Birmingham Museums Trust is an independent charity that manages the city’s museum collection and venues on behalf of Birmingham City Council. It uses the collection of around 800,000 objects to provide a wide range of arts, cultural and historical experiences, events and activities that deliver accessible learning, creativity and enjoyment for citizens and visitors to the city. Most areas of the collection are designated as being of national importance, including the finest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in the world. Attracting over 1 million visits a year, the Trust’s venues include Aston Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Blakesley Hall, Museum Collections Centre, Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Sarehole Mill, Soho House, Thinktank and Weoley Castle. www.birminghammuseums.org.uk
Turning Point West Midlands (TPWM) is a strategic network working with artists, artist collectives, curators, galleries, museums, universities, agencies and businesses, to strengthen the visual arts in the region and nationally. TPWM is one of 9 regions that form the Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) set up in response to a major review of the visual arts by Arts Council England. TPWM is supported by Arts Council England in partnership with Birmingham City University. www.tpwestmidlands.org.uk
Arts Council England champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. It supports a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2015 and 2018, Arts Council England plans to invest £1.1 billion of public money from government and an estimated £700 million from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. www.artscouncil.org.uk
Known as the nation’s leading ‘art lending library’, the Arts Council Collection celebrates British talent from the 20th century to the present day. It includes works by Birmingham-based artists Barbara Walker, Chris Clinton, Lucy Hutchinson and Stuart Whipps alongside pieces by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Lucian Freud, Mark Wallinger, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Grayson Perry, Glenn Brown and Jeremy Deller.
For further media information or photographs, please contact:
Jay Commins
Pyper York Limited
Tel: 01904 500698
Email: jay@pyperyork.co.uk
