Cathy's Art Diary

Fun exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery telling the story of the cities Bangladeshi owned curry houses. The show traced the history of these restaurants from the first restaurant to serve curry in the 1940s, through the first curry house in 1954 to the present day. This showed the social history of a largely unrecorded community. It also looked at the role curry houses came have come to play in British society. There were super copies of menus and restaurant ephemera but most fun were the recreations of place settings though the years and an installation of an almost complete interior from a restaurant in Bristol. There was also a recreation of a kitchen and the staff living quarters. The only thing missing from the show was the smell, oh and maybe a tasting plate! Closed on 14 January 2018  

Strange exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery looking at stories of colonialism as they pertain to Birmingham. The show was curated by six different people as the commentary said that “there can be no neutral voice” on the subject of colonialism. However I didn’t feel it hung together as a whole. The most disturbing section looked at how eugenics was applied to non-British people and included two beautiful heads by Marguerite Milward who made ideal busts men and women of different races. There was a section on Kenyan independence which pointed out that the case for compensation for wrongful arrests is still going through the British courts. The show also looked at Joseph Chamberlain who was a great advocate of colonialism in the Government but had previously been a much revered mayor of Birmingham. There was also a wall of pictures from the collection which reflected the themes of the show including work by Lubiana Himid and drawings by Epstein. Clo...

Interesting exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery of photographs by Kathe Buchler taken in Germany during the First World War. These were lovely sharp images of the German home front including pictures of her own family, working children and women doing the jobs of men at the front.   I loved the poignant picture of her son and a friend playing soldiers from 1909 shown with one of her daughter’s as Pierrots. I also liked the series of women doing men’s jobs including a female window cleaner. They all looked happy and empowered by their roles. The photographs were shown alongside examples of work by British female photographers of the First World War including Christina Bloom, who I’d come across before in an exhibition of her work at the Museum of London. There was also a display of photographs of Birmingham in the First World War including one of children on a float labelled “War Made us Fatherless”. Closed on 14 January 2018  

Intriguing exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham of late work by the Australian artists Sidney Nolan to mark 100 years since his birth. I only know Nolan though his iconic Ned Kelly pictures but these later works were large portraits done in spray paint when he was living for the last 14 years of his life on the Welsh-Midlands border. The earlier series were of people Nolan had known such as Francis Bacon and Benjamin Britten while the later ones feature Aboriginal subjects and in particular the those who were the subject of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Aboriginal work had an echo not only of modern street art but also Aboriginal cave paintings. They were in bright colours. I did find the images played with your eyes a bit as they had an out of focus feel which you eye tried to correct. Closes on 3 September 2017  

Strange exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham showing two installations by Indian artist, Sheela Gowda. I am afraid this show was what I’d describe as mess as art! The first room had scaffolding in with red material hung in a rather random fashion on it and a few stones. I’ve no idea what it was about. I liked the second room better which had sheets of flattened metal drums some of which had been mad into bowls. I like the fact you could see all stages of a work and I guess it was about making something out of nothing but again it seemed a bit messy! Closes on 3 September 2017  

Colourful exhibition at the Library of Birmingham of work by Czech artist, Paval Brazda. These were large digital prints on canvas taking a wry look at life and people. The images are in bright colours with bold outlines round the images. Some of the work had a pointillist feel as they were pixilated. Brazda invented his own art movement in the 1940s called Hominism, art for and about people. And the images did make you smile. My favourite was a large striking purple rhinoceros on a yellow background. Closed on 1 July 2017  

Thought provoking exhibition looking at how contemporary artists have been influenced by the rapid development of technology. The show featured work both using technology and influenced by it. There was a rather disturbing video installation by Rachel Maclean on the sexualisation of childhood using a Disney/pop video style which drew you in to difficult issues which engaging imagery. I liked Brian Griffith’s antiquated super computer made of card board boxes and Ryan Gander’s installation including a recording of his Great Aunt talking about Radio 4! It was lovely to see Marcus Coate’s “Dawn Chorus” again. It is an installation of screens showing people in their morning routines to a sound track of them singing the dawn chorus. It’s hard to explain but is very beautiful. He recorded the dawn chorus, slowed it down to human pitch, got people to sing at that pitch then speeded it back up to represent he bird sound.   I saw it before at Fabrica in Brighton and find it ver...

Fun sculpture trail around Birmingham featuring bears decorated by different artists. The trail was called the Big Sleuth as it turns out a sleuth is the collective noun for bears. Who knew! I was there soon after the trail launched so only saw the bears based in the main art gallery which mainly seem to be have been designed by local schools. There must have been about 20 colourful bears lurking around the museum. I wish I’d been there a bit later when more of the bears had been unveiled around town. I do like a good trail and this one comes with an app to help you get around. Of the ones I saw the one in the picture I’ve used was my favourite partly because he is called Hairy Potter!

Thought provoking exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery looking at views of city life by contemporary artists. It gave a rather bleak view of cities, as an urbanite, I would like to have seen a bit more about the attractive side of city living not just the bleak inner city side. I did however like the film of derelict house with it’s windows being smashed by Jochem Hendricks which reminded me of a game of Wackamole as you were waiting to spot which window would get broken next. Also the film footage of Las Vegas by Nicholas Provost which showed an image and it’s mirror image moving like a slow kaleidoscope.

Nice exhibition of contemporary jewellery at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. The works were from three jewellers, Rojesh Gogna, Cathy Miles and Miranda Sharpe, and looked at how they had been influenced by the past. I liked Miranda’s pink bowl based on microbiology and Cathy’s metal wire tea pot. I was not so convince by Rojesh’s wall hangings which looked slightly like urinals!