Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s new summer exhibition is challenging us to look at the everyday with a new perspective.
As part of a three year partnership with the Arts Council Collection, Birmingham Museums Trust’s new exhibition presents a playful and surreal experience which encourages visitors to look at everyday objects in new and imaginative ways.
Opening on 9th June 2018 The Everyday and Extraordinary will explore the potential of everyday objects to be transformed into artworks of wonder.
The technology in our pockets constantly provides wonder, but have you ever marvelled at a chess set or an old discarded umbrella?
The new exhibition will make you drop those phones and stare open-mouthed at the utter wonder of the everyday. Step foot inside the museum and enter the Wunderkammer (a room of wonder): immerse yourself in a gallery space where objects climb the walls, large sculptures fill the gallery floor and lively walls dazzle against a ‘cabinet of curiosities’-style installation.
From an umbrella fashioned into a crow and one hundred everyday objects transformed into a plastic rainbow, to eclectic artworks made from the likes of children’s toys and cake decorations, this vibrant and visually immersive exhibition features over 70 artworks by hugely talented artists.
Birmingham-based artists will get their chance to shine a spotlight on the everyday, such as Chris Clinton and Kurt Hickson. Also included are internationally-renowned works such as Yoko Ono’s ‘All White Chess Set’, which takes the everyday to showcase her anti-war beliefs, and Hew Locke’s ‘Jungle Queen II’, that uses commonplace objects to satirise British colonisation, capital wealth and consumption.
Pop a reminder in your phones: The Everyday and Extraordinary will inspire everyday wonder, astonishment and magic.
