The Ikon Gallery () is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

gallery of

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...

, located in Brindleyplace,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. It is housed in the

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

neo-gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. Ikon was set up to encourage the public to engage in contemporary art. As a result, the gallery delivers an off-site Education and Interpretation scheme to educate audiences, and to promote artists and their work. The gallery is open every day of the week except Mondays, though it opens on

bank holiday A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or h ...

Mondays. Featured artworks include all forms of media including sound,

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

as well as

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

s. Exhibitions rotate throughout the year so that as many pieces can be displayed as possible. Ikon is a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

which is partly funded by

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom ...

and Arts Council of England.

History

"The Ikon" (as it is colloquially known) was founded by art collector

Angus Skene Angus Skene (died 2002) was a Scottish accountant, art collector and art gallery-owner, notable as the founder of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. Biography Skene developed an interest in contemporary art with his wife Midge while living near Londo ...

and four artists from the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design ...

David Prentice David Prentice (4 July 1936 – 7 May 2014) was an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964 he was one of the four founder members of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery. Prentice's work features in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Mu ...

Sylvani Merilion Sylvani Merilion (née Smith) (4 October 1936 - 31 March 2019) was an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964 she was one of the four founder members of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery. Merilion's artworks in the 1960s featured images of astronau ...

Jesse Bruton Jesse Bruton (born 1933) is a British artist, and a founder of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. He gave up painting in 1972, to become a picture conservator. Bruton was born in 1933 and was educated at Birmingham College of Art, where he later ...

and Robert Groves. The collection began after Skene bought Prentice's painting ''Kate and the Waterlilies'' in 1964, and the two started discussions about the lack of support for contemporary artists provided by Birmingham's existing artistic institutions. The gallery was originally conceived as a "gallery without walls", with exhibitions planned to tour unconventional locations such as cinemas and

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

s in a motorcycle sidecar The gallery was then eventually established in 1965 in an octagonal glass-walled kiosk in Birmingham's then-new

Bull Ring shopping centre The Bull Ring is a major shopping area in central Birmingham England, and has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. Two shopping centres have been built in the area; in the 1960s, and the ...

. The gallery's first exhibition displayed work by

John Salt John Salt (2 August 1937 – 13 December 2021) was an English artist, whose greatly detailed paintings from the late 1960s onwards made him one of the pioneers of the photorealism, photorealist school. Although Salt's work developed through ...

. The venue was then staffed by the founding artists and sometimes their spouses on a voluntary basis. The gallery's venture was funded by Skene, but organisational control of the gallery was left in the hands of the artists. The name of the gallery was coined by Groves, who was interested in the

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...

s of the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...

. The name was agreed by the other founders partly on the basis that it "divides beautifully geometrically and was splendid in all directions". In Ikon's founding prospectus it declares:

"Ikon is intended as an antithesis to exclusive art establishments and galleries … it has been formed because of the need for an accessible place where the exchange of visual ideas can become a familiar reality"

The lease on the kiosk expired after three years, but with Arts Council support the gallery was able to move to the former mortuary in the basement of Queens College in Swallow Street in 1968 and appointed Jeanette Koch as gallery manager. During the next 4 years Ikon held 93 exhibitions and 40 group shows, by which time the lease on the Swallow Street premises came to an end. Under the direction of Simon Chapman (who had previously run the

Birmingham Arts Lab The Birmingham Arts Laboratory or Arts Lab was an experimental arts centre and artist collective based in Birmingham, England from 1968 to 1982 – an "arts and performance space dedicated to radical research into art and creativity". Loosely or ...

) assisted by Jeanette Koch, the gallery embarked on an ambitious expansion of broadening the exhibition programme to include the works of nationally and internationally recognised artists, and to move to a busier location in order to gain greater interest from a wider public. In the autumn of 1972, with increased financial support of The Arts Council together with new funding from West Midlands Arts Association, The

Gulbenkian Foundation The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ( pt, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of ...

and a number of local charitable trusts and industry, Ikon re-located in The Birmingham Shopping Centre, a newly built shopping mall above New Street station. The fitting out of the gallery was designed by Walter Thomson of

Associated Architects Associated Architects' Birmingham Offices are located in The Mailbox, which was designed by the practice RIBA Award Winner 2009, David Wilson Library Associated Architects is a leadinAJ100architectural firm with offices in Birmingham and Le ...

and provided a space four times larger than the Swallow Street gallery and virtually forty times larger than the original Bull Ring kiosk. The number of visitors to the gallery rocketed into the hundreds and on occasions peaked at over a thousand a day providing many with their first opportunity of seeing modern and contemporary art by living artists. The opening show of large chalk on blackboard wall drawings by John Walker firmly established Birmingham as a city with a gallery devoted to the contemporary visual arts. During the next 6 years, Ikon became positioned as one of the most important contemporary art galleries outside London, attracting both exhibitors and visitors from far beyond the city. Among the artists who had solo exhibitions were Ivor Abrahams, Allen Barker, Barry Burman, John Copnall, Vaughan Grylls, Trevor Halliday, David Hepher, Harry Holland, David Leveritt, John Mitchell,

, Peter Sedgely, David Shepherd,

William Tillyer William Tillyer (born 28 September 1938) is a British artist working within painting, watercolour and the printmaking tradition. His approach is constantly evolving; redefining and reinterpreting classic subject matter, such as landscapes, still ...

and Roger Westwood. Notable group shows included Midland Art Now featuring the work of 20 of the most prominent Midlands based artists including Roy Abell,

Barrie Cook Barrie Cook (1929 – 13 July 2020) was a British abstract artist who lived and worked on The Lizard in Cornwall, England. His works are held in national collections including Tate, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The Arts Council & the Govern ...

, John Farrington, Dick French, William Gear, Colin Hitchmough,

John Melville John William Melville (25 August 1902 – 8 December 1986) was a self-taught British Surrealist painter. He is described by Michel Remy in his book ''Surrealism in Britain'' as one of the "harbingers of surrealism" in Great Britain. He was, ...

and Peter Tarrant, and which was accompanied by a full colour printed broadsheet catalogue distributed free to the 40,000 readers of the

Birmingham Post The ''Birmingham Post'' is a weekly printed newspaper based in Birmingham, England, with a circulation of 2,545 and distribution throughout the West Midlands. First published under the name the ''Birmingham Daily Post'' in 1857, it has had a s ...

. Beyond Destination, a show curated by

Ian Iqbal Rashid Ian Iqbal Rashid (born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) is a poet, screenwriter and filmmaker known in particular for his volumes of poetry, for the TV series ''Sort Of'' and '' This Life'' and the feature films ''Touch of Pink'' and ''How She Mo ...

and featuring contemporary South Asian artists including Sutapa Biswas and

Alia Syed Alia Syed (born 1964) is an experimental filmmaker and artist of Welsh-Indian descent. Biography Born in Swansea, Wales, Syed earned her Bachelors in Fine Arts from the University of East London in 1987 and a Postgraduate degree in Mixed Media ...

went on to tour internationally. Ikon replaced the

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...

as the venue for travelling exhibitions of contemporary art such as Diane Arbus curated by John Szarkowski, Chris Orr curated by Nick Serota, Objects and Documents featuring works selected by Richard Smith, An Element of Landscape curated by

Jeremy Rees Jeremy Rees (8 May 1937 – 12 December 2003) was a British arts administrator. He was the founder of the Arnolfini Centre for the Contemporary Arts in Bristol and its director from its opening in 1961 until 1986. Born in Bridgwater Bridgw ...

, The Human Clay featuring works selected by R. B. Kitaj, and

Berenice Abbott Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of between-the-wars 20th century cultural figures, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and ...

By 1978, Ikon had again outgrown its premises and it moved to a former carpet shop in John Bright Street adjacent to the Alexandra Theatre. The gallery moved to its current site, the former Oozells Street Board School, in 1997 with the cost of the conversion partly funded by a grant from the National Lottery. The refurbishment work was designed by Levitt Bernstein, who reinstated the building's tower, which had been demolished during the 1960s. Café Ikon, on the ground floor, was designed by Birmingham-based architects The Space Studio and opened in December 1998. Form, Space & Order were the contractors. In 2011, the Ikon Gallery started work with Gillian Wearing, to create a

public art Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically acce ...

work of '

A Real Birmingham Family ''A Real Birmingham Family'' is a public artwork and sculpture by Gillian Wearing, cast in bronze, and erected in Centenary Square, outside the Library of Birmingham, England, on 30 October 2014. It depicts two local sisters, each single mother ...

'. The consequent bronze cast sculpture was erected in Centenary Square, outside the

Library of Birmingham A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

, on 30 October 2014.

Ikon Eastside

Fazeley Studios, 191 Fazeley Street, Digbeth (5029494634)

In July 2006, Ikon opened a second site in the

Digbeth Digbeth is an area of Central Birmingham, England. Following the destruction of the Inner Ring Road, Digbeth is now considered a district within Birmingham City Centre. As part of the Big City Plan, Digbeth is undergoing a large redevelopmen ...

area of Birmingham, known as Ikon Eastside. It was housed in a Victorian former chapel and Sunday school, with the words "Stay away from Lonely Places" prominently displayed on the façade - an artwork by Canadian artist Ron Terada. This venue closed in summer 2007, but the gallery opened a gallery in a different building a short distance away in May 2008. After being part of the Fazeley Studios complex it closed permanently in 2011.

Current activities

The Ikon has an artistic programme consisting of three interdependent strands. *The gallery features temporary exhibitions over two floors totalling . A variety of media are represented, including

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

, mixed

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

and installation. *There is also an off-site programme which helps develop dynamic relationships between art, artists and the audience outside the gallery. The projects and events vary enormously in scale, duration and type of location, challenging expectations of where art can be seen and by whom. *Education is at the heart of the Ikon's activities, stimulating public interest in and understanding of contemporary

visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...

. Through a variety of talks, tours, workshops and seminars, the Education & Interpretation programme recognises that artistic expression can empower people, heightening individual and community experience. Ikon is a

limited company In a limited company, the liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. In a company limited by shares, the li ...

, registered as an educational charity. Ikon receives core funding from Arts Council West Midlands and

and raises additional income from a variety of sources, including charitable trusts and foundations and corporate sponsorship.

Staff

The gallery's executive comprises Ian Hyde, Acting Chief Executive, Melanie Pocock, Acting Artistic Director, Exhibitions and Dr Linzi Stauvers, Acting Artistic Director, Education.

Former directors

*Simon Chapman (1972–1978) *Hugh Stoddart (1978–1981) *Antonia Payne (1981–1989) *Elizabeth Macgregor (1989–1999) * Jonathan Watkins (1999–2022)

Exhibiting artists

Solo exhibitions since 2000 include Santiago Sierra, On Kawara,

Roy Arden Roy Arden (born 1957) is a Canadian artist, born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He also creates sculpture from found objects, oil paintings, graphite drawings and collage, and curates and writes on contemporary art. Career Arden gr ...

Marcel Dzama Marcel Dzama (born May 4, 1974) is a contemporary artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada who currently lives and works in New York City. His work has been exhibited internationally, in particular his ink and watercolor drawings. Education Dzama r ...

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...

, Simon Patterson,

Richard Billingham Richard Billingham (born 25 September 1970) is an English photographer and artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere. Billingham is bes ...

Julian Opie Julian Opie (; born 1958) is a visual artist of the New British Sculpture movement. Life and education Opie was born in London in 1958 and raised in the city of Oxford. He attended The Dragon School and then Magdalen College School, Oxfor ...

, Cornelia Parker, and

Haroon Mirza Haroon Mirza (born 1977) is a British contemporary visual artist, of Pakistani descent. He is best known for sculptural installations that generate audio compositions. Early life and education Mirza was born in 1977 in London, England. He is ...

(November 2018 — February 2019)

References

External links

Ikon GalleryLevitt Bernstein: Ikon Gallery1890 Ordnance Survey map of school
(in centre) * {{Coord, 52.4776, N, 1.9125, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Contemporary art galleries in England Art museums and galleries in Birmingham, West Midlands Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Former school buildings in the United Kingdom Art galleries established in 1965 1965 establishments in England Charities based in England