contemporarymonkey – slave to the amazon – A brilliantly in-depth review of Sergio Vega’s ‘Paradise: Real Time’ exhibition at Ikon Eastside by a rather clever ‘any old monkey’ who is ‘having a go at contemporary art’:
In Vega’s current exhibition at Birmingham’s IKON Eastside, entitled, “Paradise: Real Time”, he underscores nature’s influence on one of its dependents: man. Through multiple, and very large, high definition video images, it’s apparent that the mother of all form, line and colour holds sway over us in not only what we build, and how we build it, but what we do when we’re not busy destroying each other. Tower blocks in urban landscapes mimicking palm forests. Brightly saturated clothing imitating tropical birds, and Birds of Paradise. Bee-like tribal dance rituals stirring up mini tornado clouds of dust. My take away is that, while the human race endeavors to suck the life out of the planet, we often don’t recognise the force of strength coming the opposite way.
I went to the latter end of the launch party of the exhibition last Friday evening with out-of-town visitor Phil O’Kane, who took the above photo and pretty accurately described it as ‘an artsy dj thingy with some of the most hip hipsters ever’. There was drinking, dancing and what seemed to be a new sport of beanbag diving. Kids today….
The Sergio Vega exhibition in on at Ikon Eastside until 5th September.
Family day on Sat 4th Sept: A workshop inspired by Sergio Vega’s exploration of paradise. Open to all ages (adults very welcome), this afternoon of creative activities engages, challenges and inspires.
The Solo – Ikon Eastside -2 | by Katchooo – A rather nice shot by Katchooo (Fiona Cullinan) of The Solo – film by Andrew Cross, featuring the music of Carl Palmer, showing at Ikon Eastside until 25th July 2010.
Born in Argentina and now based in Florida, Sergio Vega explores the mythologies of paradise underlying the culture and history of Brazil. For Ikon Eastside, he presents an installation of high definition video imagery, shot in the Brazilian state of Matto Grosso. Projections combine the forest, animals, insects and rivers with roads, towns and people. Such a symphony of nature, culture and their contradictions evoke everyday reality at once vivid and strange.
Ikon Eastside’s 2010 programme opens with an exhibition by German artist Florian Hecker. Newly commissioned work continues Hecker’s investigation into sound with a trail of electro-acoustic pieces which become increasingly abstract as you move through the gallery space.
Dance at Ikon Eastside – breaking down some barriers this spring | International Dance Festival Birmingham – Here I am blogging somewhere else – a guest post I did for International Dance Festival BIrmingham 2010 about dance in Ikon Eastside. For the post I interviewed Ikon Eastside Curator Helen Legg, who seems to be striving to break down some of those invisible barriers between artforms by drawing dance out of its comfort zone and into an non-traditional, art gallery space:
“For us it’s really clear there’s a really strong link between dance and a lot of what performance artists do, or you could think of it in terms of sculpture, so we’re not really very interested in those kinds of barriers that would mean that you would go to one thing and not the other. And I think a lot of our audiences are open-minded in terms of thinking about dance.”
I think I’ll need to keep my mind open tomorrow night when I go and see Xavier Le Roy’s Self Unifinished at Ikon Eastside, which will be transformed into a research lab for ‘a show combining science, art and contemporary dance’.
Self Unfinished is on tonight and tomorrow - Thursday 13 and Friday 14 May at 8pm. Tickets can be bought from Birmingham Hippodrome Box Office.
