24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
Exhibitions
My MGM 2008 - By MGM Arts Coordinator Clare Moloney
Clare Moloney
16/05/2008
Image: shows a painting in shades of red and crimson which has rectangular forms outlined upon it.
Jürgen Partenheimer, Carmen, 2006, Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist
Clare Moloney, MGM Arts Programme Co-ordinator, is sampling some of the art events and exhibitions happening this May. This week, Clare looks at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery.
As part of Museums and Galleries Month 2008, Ikon Gallery is teaming up with the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA), to put on a free ArtBus, taking visitors on a ‘late night’ tour of the three art venues on May 28.
Visitors can enjoy a range of permanent and special exhibitions at the Barber and the RBSA and be amongst the first to see a new solo show from Cinthia Marcelle and the first UK exhibition from Swiss artists Andres Lutz and Anders Guggisberg at Ikon.
It's the last few days of the current shows at Ikon – Discontinuity, Paradox and Precision by Jürgen Partenheimer; and Lands End from Ruth Claxton, both of which close on Sunday May 18. I strongly recommend you catch these if you can. Both exhibitions are concerned with place and space, and our complex negotiation of it.
Partenheimer’s show includes some beautifully detailed abstract works, which convey strong emotions given the use of different media – ice-cream coloured shades interrupted with daubs of bold colour or thick smudgy pencil lines.
The show also includes Partenheimer’s recent collaboration with composer Kevin Volans - The Partenheimer Project. Inspired by the language of visual art, Volans has created three separate compositions which articulate the process of a viewer comprehending a piece of abstract art.
Like the paintings, the music was sparse yet interspersed with some brief bombastic moments. The hanging and installation of the show also reflects this – there is plenty of space to move between the art works and reflect on what we are seeing.
Image: shows a small figurine wearing a red crinoline dress viewed on a circular base
Ruth Claxton, Lands End, 2008 (detail). Courtesy of the artist
On the other hand, for Lands End, Ruth Claxton has created a vast topography and wonderland of stands, hoops and mirrors. Claxton has populated this landscape with ornamental figurines – the type of which I remember seeing proudly perched on my parents' and grandparents' mantelpiece.
Yet these familiar objects are made strange through a variety of spectacular appendages. These appendages, made up of brightly coloured flowers, buttons, baubles and strips of plasticine, both dazzle and blind the figures; they give the impression they are more immersed inside some private and interior activity, than they are with their immediate material surroundings.
Claxton is fascinated with our relationship with technology and our increasingly mediated world. If you miss this show at the Ikon, you can still see some of Claxton’s work at the Barber Institute, where she produced a series of postcard pieces; reproductions of works in the Barber collection where she has intervened and modified their imagery further. Why not take a look via the free ArtBus on May 28?
Ikon Gallery
1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, Birmingham, B1 2HS, West Midlands, England
T: 0121 248 0708
Open: Tuesday - Sunday 11am - 6pm
Closed: Closed Mondays except Bank Holidays, and during installation of exhibitions. Please call to confirm opening times
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham
The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TS, West Midlands, England
Open: Monday - Saturday: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm
Sunday: 12 Noon - 5.00 pm
Closed: Good Friday, 24-26 December and New Year's Day
Royal Birmingham Society of Artists
4 Brook Street, St. Paul's, Birmingham, B3 1SA, West Midlands, England
Open: Monday - Friday 10.30 - 5.30 Saturday 10.30 - 5.00
Sunday 1.00 - 5.00
Closed Bank holidays
Related Articles
Ikon Gallery Chosen To Take Art To Children Of Birmingham
MGM 2008 - Ideas And Innovation in Art
MGM 2008 - Locals Hop Aboard The Art Bus In Birmingham
MGM 2008 -Top Art Events And Shows For The Rest Of May
MGM 2008 - Night At The Museum Across West Midlands
UK Gallery Partnerships Get £5m From Art Fund To Buy International Art
Ten Museums And Galleries In Running For Art Fund £5 Million
E-news registration
E-mail story to a friend
Tell us what you think
Artists As Witness To The Holocaust At Imperial War Museum
The Art Of Ladybird Books Celebrated At Havant Museum
Ford Madox Brown - The Unofficial Pre-Raphaelite At BMAG
Major New Hew Locke Art Installation Opens At Rivington Place
View Basket - Art Bought Online At The Hayward Project Space
Tattoos, Corsetting And Body Modification At Cartwright Hall
Fashion V Sport - New V&A Show Gives Fashion A Sporting Stance
Three Artists Are Pretty Vacant At London's Transition Gallery
The Courtauld Gallery Displays Full Collection of Cézannes
Hans Stakelbeek's Photos Of Afghanistan At PM Gallery Ealing
100 Years Of The TA At The Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum
David Moore Reveals The Last Things At Belfast Exposed Gallery
Bugs Are Giants Of The Garden At The Lightbox In Woking
Shipley Art Gallery Analyses The Melancholy Mind
Last Chance To See - Inner Voices At Visual Imprints Artspace Brighton
Lord Byron's Spirit At Newstead Abbey, Nottingham
London's Cartoon Museum Celebrates 70 Years Of The Beano
Photographer Reveals Two Estates At Tredegar House, Newport
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.