AngelShares is a new crowdfunding service for the arts.
It was developed locally (founded by Sarah Gee of Indigo Ltd and built by Made Media) and launches with projects from Ikon Gallery, Craftspace, Light House Media Centre, Belgrade Theatre and Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.
The interesting thing about this one being that eligible donations can attract Gift Aid, adding a healthy chunk of extra cash to any projects that you choose to support.
AngelShares is on Twitter and on Facebook.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at The Public for the showcase event of the DCD Programme. In case you’d not heard of it:
Arts Council England West Midlands’ Digital Content Development (DCD) Programme is a three year programme of investment which aims to catalyse the creation and creative use of digital content platforms for arts organisations across the West Midlands region
The website went up recently and the map on the homepage shows some of the projects, along with how much money they received. Further information is due on the website at some point, but if you look at the page source then you can glean a little more. On the basis that you probably don’t want to ruin your eyes, here’s what I found:
As well as these projects, the programme supported a range of other activities including workshops, innovation labs and other events.
I’ve heard of one or two of these projects, but the vast majority are new to me so it’ll be interesting to hear a little more. I should probably also add that I’m involved in the Rosie Kay Dance Company project – that’ll launch next week so I’ll blab a bit more about it then.
It’s been a while since I heard anything about the mooted Birmingham Museum of Contemporary Art, but then I spotted this:
With a £1million grant from the Art Fund, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and partners New Art Gallery Walsall and Ikon Gallery have been creating a major collection of international contemporary art.
Which is interesting but I think I’d heard about that before. Still, new news is that this collection will be shown off later in the year (from 13 November) at BMAG’s Waterhall.
This is the first chance to see some of the newly acquired works by artists from India, China, Africa, and Western Europe. In painting, photography, and video installations they explore the theme of the “modern metropolis” – the social and physical landscapes of city life.
These international works will be shown alongside examples from the Museum’s Contemporary British Art Collection including paintings by Tony Bevan, Fiona Rae, George Shaw and many others.
With all this rubbish weather hanging around over the last few weeks it has been too tempting to hide indoors on a Sunday and stay warm.
Here is a few exhibitions on around the West Mids, are free to the public and are open on a Sunday. Go on! Put on your favourite woolly jumper, brave the cold, and go get some culture.
Armando Andrade Tudela
A new series of films reflects upon a modular construction designed by French architect Jean Pierre Maneval in 1963.
4 February – 29 March 2009
Ikon Gallery
Open: Sunday 11am-6pm
In Touch
In this new interactive gallery visitors can engage in and experience a variety of works through touch, sound and light.
01 Jan 2008 – 01 Jan 2012
Birmingham Museum
Open: Sunday 12.30pm – 5pm
Fresh Out of the Box
Exhibiting artists include: Artists Anonymous, Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn and Gavin Turk.
Runs till 14th October 09
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Open: Sunday 11am – 4pm
I wanted this to be a longer list but not that many galleries are open on a Sunday, especially the more independant contemporary ones, which seems odd. Can anyone shed some light on why this is?
Lizz is an illustrator from Birmingham who likes black tea, knitting and cats. She works in a similar way to other illustrators, such as Sarah Ray and James Nash, creating personal small press comics and working with others to produce animation. All three illustrators exhibited their wares at the Alternative Press Fair in London last sunday.
On her website you can devour some Comic Sushi: Tales of German cats, hairy midget elves and Mr Lemon. Takeaway titbits include badges and postcards. You can pick up a copy of her comic Tofu and Cats at the Ikon Gallery shop.
On Wednesday 26 November a free bus will travel between three of the city’s galleries – the Ikon (which will feature Harminder Singh Judge‘s new exhibition), the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and the RBSA Gallery. There’ll be free guided tours of the exhibitions.
Here’s the bus timetable:
On the evening the Ikon Shop will be open until 9pm offering mulled wine, warm mince pies and 10% off in their shop. Mmm, warm mince pies.
I’ve just had an email from a journalist writing an article on art in Birmingham. She says:
While I will be looking at galleries such as RBSA and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery I would also like to look at something less conventional such as street art and something with a more independent edge
The first few things that sprung to mind (thinking mainly of galleries) were:
What have I missed?
I’ve been feeling a bit off-colour the past couple of days, so apols for the lack of decent posting. If anything’s going to raise my spirits it’s the prospect of a sodding great whale and a huge robot both turning up in the city. It’s like Power Rangers or something.
The former comes courtesy of Claudia Losi’s Balena Project as presented by Ikon Gallery (and previously alluded to). A 25ft cashmere whale will be deposited by the escalators in The Mailbox from 24 Sept to 26 Oct. This is what it looks like:
Hmm, so it doesn’t look like a fearsome, city-levelling villain, more like me flopped on my sofa feeling sorry for myself.
Meanwhile, flyers for Hello Digital (a mere 6 weeks away and still no-one knows quite what it is) will apparently be distributed around the Bullring tomorrow by a giant robot. Brilliant!
I’ll write something about Hello Digital when I know what’s going on but details have been trickling out:
So far the Hello Digital blog and Twitter are up and running and the main site is due to go live any minute now. Meanwhile here’s the flyer:
It’s nice to see the peeps at the Ikon making more use of audio and video on their website. The latest offering is a video documentary on the installation process and work of Shahzia Sikander whose exhibition, ‘Intimate Ambivalence‘ will be at the Ikon Gallery until 14 September.
Chris Keenan (Prime Objective) produced the video and talks about it on the Prime Objective blog. You can see the video itself as the first part of a slideshow on the Ikon Gallery site.
Like I say, it’s good to see this sort of thing but personally I’d like to see a little more (demanding sod that I am). In case anyone from the gallery is reading, here’s a cheeky wishlist:
