A display of old tyres collected from the M6 motorway is amongst the works of art being exhibited in galleries this spring, writes Graham Young.
As the new year kicks in, so too does the next series of exhibitions at various centres around the West Midlands.
Top of the pile in the curiosity stakes will be... a pile of old tyres.
In an exhibition cleverly named M6 – no surprise there, then, where the tyres have come from – the new display at Digbeth’s Eastside Projects will certainly get tongues wagging from Saturday.
Some might say: What’s the point? What’s it all for? Where’s the art in that?
We are though, living in a world which consumes resources at an incredible rate.
And, for the Loughborough-born artist Mike Nelson, a pile of old tyres seemed to be as good a way as any to illustrate the point of who we are and what we are doing.
Nelson represented Britain at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and has twice been nominated for the Turner Prize: in 2001, and again in 2007.
His work The Coral Reef (2000), commissioned by Matt’s Gallery, London, was installed as part of the collection at Tate Britain, London (2010-11). Solo exhibitions include: 408 tons of imperfect geometry, Malmö Konsthall (2012); A Psychic Vacuum, Creative Time, New York (2007) and Mirror Infill, Frieze Projects, Frieze art fair, London (2006).
Represented by 303 Gallery, New York; Galleria Franco Noero, Turin; Matt’s Gallery, London and neugerriemschneider, Berlin, Born in 1967, Nelson says he has been thinking about this exhibition for a third of his life.
“M6 is a work that I’ve been meaning to make for over 15 years,” he says.
“When I first thought it up the location of the work was in flux so the title could well have been something else, somewhere else. However due to Birmingham’s status as our motor city and the industrial locale of Digbeth this is the perfect place to finally realise it.”
Beth Bramich, distribution at Eaststide Projects is delighted to have it.
“M6 is Nelson’s first major exhibition in his home region and continues his singular investigation of political histories through the raw materials of our world,” she says.
“Within the old industrial heart of Birmingham, discarded, utilitarian objects have been collected as if they were trophies of an ignored parallel world – a dark, abject monument.
“M6 acts as an invocation of the highways and their concrete islands, memorialising their past production and the shifting economies of spent resources.”
Also new to Eastide Projects from Saturday will be Rachel Lowe’s Revolving Woman, a large-scale projection set in a Brazilian shopping centre where a figure turns behind a plate glass window.
The third new exhibition is Curiosity Killed the Cat by Andrew Lacon and Marie Toseland, a ‘plan-chest’ display designed to reflect “a shared discourse around quantum physics and its relationship to collaboration”.
All three exhibitions will run until March 9.
The gallery at 86 Heath Mill Lane is open Wednesday to Saturday, noon-5pm. Details: eastsideprojects.org or call 0121 771 1778.
* The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012 is the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK. From almost 3,000 entries, there will be 78 shortlisted works by 73 artists on display in the first floor gallery of the MAC in Cannon Hill Park from Saturday until March 3. Details: www.macarts.co.uk or 0121 446 3232.
* There’s an Auschwitz-Birkenau photographic exhibition in the Long Gallery of the Visitor Centre at the National Memorial Arboretum, Croxall Road, Alrewas, DE13 7AR from January 19-February 3. Holocaust Day is January 27. Details: www.thenma.org.uk or call 01283 792 333.
* The Public at New Street, West Bromwich B70 7G is launching a guided tour of its artworks, from 11am on the third Thursday of the month. Starts January 17. Details: www.thepublic.com or 0121 533 7161.
* Artist Ruth Radcliffe is hosting a ‘Drop-in Life Drawing Day’ at the Barber Institute from noon-4pm on Saturday, January 19. Details: www.barber.org.uk or 0121 414 7333.
* The Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season continues with John Copley’s production of La bohème showing at Cineworlds Broad Street and Solihull, Giant Screen Cinema at Millennium Point, Apollo Redditch, Empires, Odeon New Street, Showcase Walsall, Wolverhampton Lighthouse, Vue Worcester and Stratford-upon-Avon Picture House from 7.15pm on Tuesday. Duration 2hrs 45min including two intervals. Details: cinema.roh.org.uk
