Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce’s Looking Glass exhibition tours Australia.

Ikon presents new and recent work by 20 contemporary artists exploring the relationship between architectural modernism and horror.

Jim Thompson Art Center presents Dreamday, a solo exhibition by Mit Jai Inn (b.1960, Chiang Mai). A leading figure of contemporary art in Thailand, Mit is renowned for his colourful artworks that merge painting and sculpture.

Ikon tours A Gift to Birmingham by Vanley Burke to Handsworth Library. The exhibition features seventeen portraits of members of Migrant Voice, a migrant-led national organisation with a hub in Birmingham. Each image tells a story of migration, either recent or long past, with subjects accompanied or alone.

Ikon hosts an exhibition of work by Fine Art, Illustration and Photography students from Coventry University School of Art and Design, made in response to Horror in the Modernist Block.

Birmingham-based artist and activist Foka Wolf creates a gallery installation and billboard campaign that illustrates the invisibility of people with learning disabilities and / or autistic people in long-stay hospitals.

In summer 2023, Ikon transforms its galleries into a platform for performance art, with the first UK exhibition by acclaimed Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo (b.1969).   

Mali Morris has been exploring the possibilities of abstract painting for over 50 years. Her recent paintings create visual arenas, where colour moves through space and space moves through colour.

Birmingham-born artist Dean Kelland exhibits the results of his four-year residency at HMP Grendon, Buckinghamshire, Europe’s only wholly therapeutic prison.  

Ikon presents There is no masterpiece, the first exhibition at the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Studio at HMP Grendon, Buckinghamshire.  

Artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah RA will represent Great Britain at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2024, the British Council has announced.

As we approach the end of 2022, we would like to thank everyone who has supported Ikon during the year. We remain committed to offering free experiences of art for all, including our exhibitions, off-site projects, talks, tours and workshops.

The latest post by Dean Kelland, Ikon’s artist in residence at HMP Grendon. “It started with a seemingly insignificant series of e-mail notifications. None of which I responded to. In that lack of response lay the catalyst for a decision to retrace steps and try to find or re-find the roots of what I do. It is no surprise that after 25 years as an educator, 100 miles an hour, week in week out I would feel a sense of loss.”

Take a look at Ikon Shop’s newly commissioned window illustration by Window Artists for our winter exhibition, Horror in the Modernist Block. Birmingham-based Window Artists take their inspiration from their love of the city’s brutalist architecture, as well as the natural world and how it intersects with the urban landscape.