One of Birmingham’s cultural institutions celebrates its 50th birthday next year with a series of special exhibitions and events.
Ikon, the city’s internationally-acclaimed art gallery, plans to celebrate the milestone with a programme called Ikon 50. This will see a return to the gallery by five key British artists representing each of the gallery’s five decades.
Photorealist painter John Salt was the first artist to have an exhibition at Ikon, in April 1965, while Ian Emes’ 1973 film animation heralded the start of a brilliant career, among other things visualising the music of Pink Floyd.
In 1988 Cornelia Parker exhibited her seminal work Thirty Pieces of Silver and ten years later Yinka Shonibare’s combination of found objects and African fabric was a defining moment. The new millennium saw an ambitious programme that included new work by Julian Opie, famous for his sleeve artworks for Britpop band Blur.
Speaking at the launch of Ikon 50, gallery director Jonathan Watkins said: “It’s an extraordinary thing that this upstart, this Johnny-come-lately, should now be rolling into its 50th year.
“This takes us from next spring to April 5, 2015 which is the 50th anniversary to the day on which Ikon first opened its doors to the Birmingham public.
“We have a programme that has been specially designed for our Tower Room project room which will take visitors through each decade of Ikon’s 50 years and there will be one artist representing each decade who we’re calling Ikon’s icons.”
Ikon 1980s will be a highlight of the anniversary year, according to a gallery spokesman, with a review of Ikon’s programme from 1978-1989. The comprehensive selection of paintings, sculpture, installation, film and photography exemplifies a pivotal decade in British art history, including the work of Helen Chadwick, Dennis Oppenheim, Vanley Burke, Sean Scully and Susan Hiller.
An exhibition of photography and film by Kurdish artist Jamal Penjweny opens the Ikon 50 programme.
Mr Watkins first encountered Penjweny’s work through research for the Iraqi Pavilion he curated at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
There the photographic series Saddam is Here – 12 images of Iraqi people, each holding a life-size image of Saddam Hussein’s face in front of their own – was shown to critical acclaim. This, his first solo exhibition, is a key moment for Ikon.
Other exhibitions include the work of Belgian artist Michel François in his most comprehensive UK exhibition to date, whilst the Korean artist Lee Bul presents her first ever UK solo show. Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year 2013 Imran Qureshi visits Ikon from Pakistan, and David Tremlett’s colourful drawings cover every inch of the walls on Ikon’s second floor.
The year finishes with a video installation by Angolan artist Nástio Mosquito, shown in stark contrast to the minimalism of A.K. Dolven whose exhibition includes the seascapes of her fellow Norwegian, the 19th century painter Peder Balke.
Late in 2014, Ikon will unveil a sculpture by Gillian Wearing, positioned outside the Library of Birmingham.
A Real Birmingham Family is the outcome of the artist’s search to find, and immortalise in bronze, a ‘real’ Birmingham family. From more than 370 nominations, a judging panel chose the Jones family – Roma and her sister Emma, along with their young sons Kyan and Shaye – to be the subjects of the commission.
Established in 1964 by a group of artists looking for a new, accessible place to share ideas, Ikon’s first home was in a kiosk in the Bull Ring shopping centre. Since then, the gallery has had many homes around the city centre, including the Pallasades shopping centre where, in 1974, it was the unintended casualty of an IRA bomb, the actual target being the army recruitment office next door.
Ikon moved to its current Brindleyplace venue in 1998, converting the former Oozells Street school into a contemporary gallery space now welcoming more than 130,000 visitors a year.
The gallery has grown to develop a worldwide reputation exhibiting artists from China, Japan, Australia, France, USA, Russia, Canada and the Pacific Islands, in addition to homegrown Birmingham talent including John Salt, John Myers, Ruth Claxton, Stuart Whipps and, currently, Hurvin Anderson.
As part of Ikon 50, the gallery will undertake its largest fundraising campaign to date.
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