A BUILDING dogged by controversy and financial catastrophes before it even opened is well worth a visit – especially if it’s hosting a temporary exhibition which attracts you.
You can even get to go for quite a pleasant walk during your visit, without having to go out into the cold.
The Public in West Bromwich is about a 45 minute drive from Coventry. It looms startlingly out of a rather bleak West Midlands landscape of a shopping centre and cleared wastelands, and you catch glimpses in gaps between buildings as you try to find your way to the nearest car park.
UK events
Help Unravel an arts event
If your family wants to take part in a nationwide arts event, there’s a chance at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery tomorrow (January 8)
An art project called Unravel is coming to the gallery as part of a national tour in an attempt to make the longest hand-painted film in Britain. Unravel aims to represent each metre of land between John O’Groats and Land’s End by one frame of a 16mm film, which will be hand painted by the public which will apparently result in a 16-hour epic.
People are invited to go along, with their children also invited to take part, at the Ikon between 12-3pm tomorrow.
Welcome to Private View
This blog has been launched as a spin off from the art column which appears in the Coventry Telegraph’s What’s On guide on Fridays.
I’ve been writing the newspaper column for four years and it follows the format of a review of a new exhibition, listings and short bits about other exhibitions in the area, or events at galleries.
I’m often frustrated by having more things I want to write about than there’s space for – interviews with artists, pieces about excellent but brief exhibitions which have been and gone before I get a chance to write about them in the paper.
So in this blog I want to go beyond the column, to include observations on the Coventry, Warwickshire and larger art world, gossip, interviews, plus bits of news I’m not able to squeeze into the newspaper column.
This is of course the worst week of the year to launch a blog – but it’s not long til January and I’m already looking forward to sipping a glass of wine at the first exhibition private views of the year.
Private View II 