Dreams – so important for all of us, as two art shows visited on the same evening showed.
At the National Trust property, Packwood House, near Lapworth in Warwickshire, the sun shone as artist Hilary Jack led visitors on a tour of her installations in the grounds. One is a large wooden four-poster bed which was inspired by a quote from a 1930s visitor’s book at the house, which described it as “a house to dream of, a garden to dream in”.
More of this exhibition below, but it was soon off to The New Art Gallery in Walsall for Dealing with Dreams, the Garman Ryan Collection’s 40th anniversary exhibition. As one of the women, Lady Kathleen (Garman) Epstein wrote in 1973, the year before the collection was first exhibited in Walsall “I feel we are dealing with dreams and about to house them in a solid Midlands setting for posterity. How delightful.” More about this exhibition here.
Delightful would also be one word to describe Hilary Jack’s installations at Packwood House. Although based in Manchester, her work has recently been seen in Empty Nest at Compton Verney, and she was afterwards asked to work at Packwood, and Packwood Follies is the result.
Artists
Coventry University final year students’ work on show
Coventry University’s art and design final year students are holding their end-of-course shows across campus this week, with the chance for all to see what they’ve been working on.
The show opening is usually one of my Coventry are highlights of the year, but this year it felt quieter than usual, and the more muted tone – in the basement and top floor anyway – seemed to match the show.
Jeremy Deller exhibition at Mead focuses on industrial and musical past to raise valid questions
It’s been D-day in Coventry- Jeremy Deller day. All That is Solid Melts Into Air is the title of the touring exhibition he has curated which is now showing at the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre, at the University of Warwick in Coventry.
On the opening day Deller was in Coventry to take part in an In Conversation with Mead curator Sarah Shalgosky held at The Herbert in Coventry and then there was the exhibition opening party at the Mead. I caught up with Deller in the morning as the final touches were put to the exhibition – including fixing the jukebox which takes central position in one room.
Adrian Street and his father1973 photo Denis Huthinson (c) Denis Huthinson
The exhibition is described as “Jeremy Deller takes a personal look at the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British popular culture, and its persisting influence on our lives today”.
He told me that wasn’t what he had set out to do: “Originally it was to be a show much more about music culture and industry but when I started looking at the industrial revolution it became fascinating to me and I became more and more interested in it and the effect it had on people and urbanization and the show became less about music and more about the social and cultural aspect.”
New Art Gallery brings together great overview of Richard Long’s career
There has been a lot of Richard Long’s work on show in the Midlands in the past year – and now there’s an exhibition dedicated to him at The New Art Gallery in Walsall.
The gallery is showing Richard Long: Prints 1970-2013 and a work created in the gallery, Spring Circle, 1992. The prints cover all those he has made during his career.
In a fascinating In Conversation with the Walsall gallery’s director, Stephen Snoddy, Long was questioned about his career and his work.
Ragley Hall artist’s talk before France Brodeur exhibition a real treat
France Brodeur (left) with Dawn Harris, artist in residence at Ragley
Knowledge can really help illuminate an artist’s work, and hearing her talk for nearly an hour about how passionate she is for her work was certainly a good introduction to a new exhibition in Warwickshrie.
France Brodeur gave an illustrated talk about her exhibition, fittingly called A Lasting Passion, at Ragley Hall, before her exhibition opened in the Ragley Studio, in the picturesque nearby stable block, all organised by Dawn Harris who has an arts residency there and runs arts events on site.
The invitation also included a cream tea in the tearoom and, well, it didn’t tie in with my current diet plan, but it was too alluring an opportunity to miss.
Bill Drummond begins 12-year world tour at Eastside Projects, Birmingham
An exhibition has opened in Birmingham which is then going on the longest-ever art world tour, ending back in Birmingham on 28 April 2025 – if the artist does not die beforehand, as the publicity materials dryly state.
Bill Drummond is 60, and his name to me and others of a certain age will always be synonymous with a bunch of KLF hit records of the late 1980s and early 1990s, 3am Eternal, Justified and Ancient and others from The White Room, classics of their time.
But Drummond’s life since then has become almost an eternal art performance, and this exhibition which stays in Birmingham until June 14 will see him taking part in many strange acts involving people around the city.
George Wagstaffe and Michala Gyetvai brighten January with joint exhibition
An artistic relationship which has helped two artists to become newly-inspired and revitalized has led to a joint exhibition in a great setting.
Michala Gyetvai and George Wagstaffe opened their show Powerful Forces with a talk about their work. The exhibition is open to the public until February 13 – and well worth the journey.
It is on at the Michael Heseltine Gallery at the Chenderit School, a visual arts college in Middleton Cheney, near Banbury. The gallery is made from glass and galvanized steel with cedar panelling, and is built in lean-to style against the school wall, offering wall spaces and plenty of room to display Michala’s large textiles and George’s sculptures in a way that looks like it was designed around them.
Coventry artist Jack Foster asks big questions in London exhibition
A Coventry-born artist and successful graduate is holding a fascinating-sounding exhibition in London.
Jack Foster who is from Allesley, Coventry, studied on the foundation diploma course at Coventry University then the BA, graduating this year with a First, and winning the Coventry University drawing prize. I liked his works in the university degree show, writing at the time in Private View that his works for that focuses on religion, pilgrimage and superstition, and were “intriguing and well executed”.
Jack sent a proposal for an exhibition to the British Humanist Association, and the result is a show at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, until the end of January, entitled Methinks It Is Like a Weasel, described as a critique of religion and religiosity.
Ragley Hall Studio stables exhibition is superb end to inspiring summer
Michala Gyetvai with some of her works
Location is everything so they say, and you can’t beat the setting of another exhibition by a lucky group of artists.
Back in the spring, I was lucky enough to go to the private view at the start of Dawn Harris’s time as artist in residence at Ragley Hall, near Alcester. She explained then that the residency was called Negotiating Heritage, and she would be considering why heritage was important to the community. Along with Deb Catesby and Michala Gyetvai, she would be working from studios in stables at the Hall to create works there.
The summer has ended with an exhibition from Dawn, Deb and Michala and eight other artists, all working around the Negotiating Heritage theme.
Pop Artist (and woman) Pauline Boty finally gets the attention she deserved
Colour Her Gone by Pauline Boty
The past few decades are full of examples of people who looked good, and died young, becoming a legend and an icon. Unfortunately her tragically-early death did not do this to the artist Pauline Boty, but an exhibition and book are likely to bring her the lasting fame she deserved.
Pauline Boty, Pop Artist and Woman are the title of the exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and the accompanying book by the exhibition’s co-curator Sue Tate. Both tell Boty’s story but more than that, place her in the 60s world which she seemed to revel in, and also examine her role as a woman artist, and what that meant at the time. Tate’s book includes many images but is scholarly in approach, coming firmly from a gender analysis perspective which is refreshing.
Private View II 