Thank you to all of the families who took part in our recent Family Saturday workshop with artist Monica Perez Vega. Families were introduced to Ikon’s current exhibition Faster Than Ever before creating their own versions of key artworks, experimenting with colour, collage and painting.

Get creative at home or school and download our free Activity Packs. Created by Birmingham artist Farwa Moledina, the packs are inspired by Ikon’s current exhibition Faster Than Ever. ​They include practical activities for Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 such as painting, mask making and portraiture, with links to artists’ films you can watch online and questions for thinking and talking about art in relation to other subjects, including global cultures and environments.

Whilst Ikon’s main galleries are closed, our online shop remains open, stocking a wide range of exhibition catalogues, books, artist editions and gifts.

If you missed our recent world premiere of year zero (2020), a new audiovisual artwork by British artist Haroon Mirza, you can watch it in full on Ikon’s YouTube channel until 14 February.

Ikon is pleased to announce Ikon for Artists, an open call exhibition that takes place from 26 February to 14 March 2021 at Ikon Gallery, Brindleyplace.

Ikon announces the world premiere of year zero (2020), a new audiovisual artwork by British artist Haroon Mirza.

If you missed our recent Zoom talk with Charisse Kenion and Vanley Burke, you can now watch it in full on Ikon’s YouTube channel.

By James Latunji-Cockbill, Producer – Art at HMP Grendon

While the gallery is temporarily closed, we continue to share our exhibitions and activities via our digital channels. Please visit Ikon’s website and engage with us via social media.

Get creative at school or home and download our free Activity Packs inspired by our current Krištof Kintera exhibition. They include practical activities for Early Years, Key Stage 1, 2 and 3.

The iconic Selfridges building at Bullring is set for major renovation work beginning in Autumn 2020 with completion expected ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2022. During this time, the building will be covered in a striking installation created by Birmingham-born artist and designer Osman Yousefzada. This is Osman’s first piece of public art, which he has titled Infinity Pattern 1. The distinctive art work is part of a series of experimentations of tessellated patterns that are reminiscent of the perennial architectural qualities in his work, and also suggest a space without borders of symbolic bridges – connecting continuously shifting cultures and dream worlds.

Congratulations to Ikon Trustee Helen Higson OBE who has been  appointed as the new Vice Lord-Lieutenant to the West Midlands’ Lord-Lieutenant, John Crabtree OBE. 

Ikon is delighted to announce the reopening of its gallery premises in Brindleyplace, on Thursday 20 August.

The latest post from By Dean Kelland, Ikon’s artist in residence at HMP Grendon.    “I spent the last week picking up oddly shaped pebbles…”

We are pleased to announce that Australian Aboriginal artist Yhonnie Scarce will return to Ikon in Spring 2021 to continue her artist residency and present an exhibition of new work in Ikon’s Tower Room.

In anticipation of Langlands & Bell’s postponed exhibition The Past Is Never Dead…it’s not Even Past at Gallery 1957, Ghana, Gus Casley-Hayford (Director, V&A East) and Jonathan Watkins (Director, Ikon and Curator of this exhibition) join Langlands & Bell, to discuss a range of issues raised by the artists’ new body of works, which explore the architecture of the ‘Slave Forts’ built on the coast of Ghana by European traders following the construction of the Elmina Castle by the Portuguese in 1482.

Ikon is delighted to be awarded an Art Fund Small Project Grant to commission a new digital artwork, titled year zero, by Haroon Mirza, as part of his ongoing ‘modular opera’. This ‘missing’ chapter consists of a film featuring performers singing a new text, and playing music composed by the artist, from the windows of their homes. Mirza’s inspiration is the widely circulated smartphone footage of communities in Italy, singing from their balconies and windows at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, their small but rousing balcony performances capturing a collective sense of optimism and unity.

It’s been a year since Hew Locke’s Ikon exhibition Here’s the thing, his most comprehensive exhibition to date. Since then the show has toured the United States, firstly to Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri and now currently showing at Colby College Museum of Art, Maine. We are pleased to announce that the exhibition dates at Colby College Museum of Art have been extended until 29 November 2020. Please note that the gallery remains closed temporarily, please check their website for reopening dates.

This month, artist Dean Kelland’s residency at HMP Grendon features in an article in Inside Time written by one of the prison’s residents.

Ikon is excited to be taking part in Midsummer Festival, a free one-day festival celebrating arts and culture in the West Midlands on Saturday 20 June.

Ikon has been awarded a Research Continuity Grant by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art to undertake research on members of the Blk Art Group who exhibited at the gallery during the 1990s. This includes artist Keith Piper who in Summer 2021 will present a new digital film reflecting on the proposition of A Ship Called Jesus, an earlier work by him about the legacy of the slave trade.

The latest post by Dean Kelland, Ikon’s artist in residence at HMP Grendon.   “I am a great thief of tender moments.”

During lockdown Ikon Youth Programme have been meeting digitally. One of their recent projects involved writing a ‘Dear Nature’ letter, inspired by John Newling’s work, reflecting on their relationship with nature. Find out more @ikonyouthprogramme

Artist John Newling and writer Alys Fowler exchange letters on their daily walks, through residential areas and open spaces in Nottingham and Birmingham. Reflecting on the pattern language of these environs and their own behaviours, some happy accidents and moments of connection occur.