Birmingham’s district of Digbeth is full of contradiction. From the old manufacturers of the city to the creative spaces that have popped up wherever a landlord will allow. On the somewhat dark and dingy Floodgate Street a small sign above the corrugated roller doors tells us we’ve reached the destination for the evenings event.

The whiff of oil in the air hints at its working past but the new activity inside tells of a distinctly creative transition. The audience is greeted by a large wooden structure inside an old industrial unit now named Boxxed. Cautiously entering the structure is a group of girls whose eye-wear is from a throwback retro trend – the 3D glasses.

This is our tool for the evening and one that will enable us to view Walsall artist Chu’s interpretation of Wood as part of the Tiger Beer Lucky 8.

The cube has 8 corners and by standing in the ‘Sweet Spot’ directly under the light and in the centre of the space the corners vanish from sight. It’s the accumulation of a unique painting technique that Chu has been working with for some years. The 3 dimensional wooden cube is filled with his unique 3D art that only comes alive when the glasses are on.

While the building begins to fill with curious punters the light varies around the room as the entrance to the cube is opened and closed. People are taking their time inside to adjust their eyes to what jumps out before them. It isn’t always clear what the image is as your eyes move from above to side to floor but the reward comes when a pipe jumps out at you or a camera lens pushes forward. The industrial-ness of the art fits the space perfectly and must clearly have been an inspiration for Chu.

The artist is enjoying being back near his native homeland and is continuously greeted by old friends who have come out see his new creation. So keen to get his work done for the launch he tells us that he even slept in the cube one night on a camper bed. A brave move if February’s cold temperatures are anything to go by but for the man who has spent the last 30 years honing is craft should we be surprised?

Valentines is fast approaching and at Elphick’s we love these gorgeous Love inspired prints.  Ranging from £12 for a Claire Hartigan ‘Valentine Bears’ to £130 for Kate Gibb’s ‘I Love You’ if you don’t have anyone else to treat then just buy one for yourself.

The beautiful folk-inspired work of Clare Rojas comes to the Ikon in Birmingham as the gallery presents the first UK museum exhibition by the American artist.

Using a wide range of media, including painting, installation and print-making the exhibition, comprising much new work, marks a shift in Rojas’ practice. Paintings of empty domestic interiors suggest people have just departed, leaving clues of their identities, subtle revelations of gender and class.

The paintings will form centrepieces in a larger installation that is the entire exhibition, walls of the gallery covered by a patchwork of painted panels akin to a quilt.  Some are focused on particular imagery; others are assemblages of colour and pattern. They combine to recall a myriad of references from West Coast modernism, to Latino folk or Native American craft, outsider art and street graffiti.

Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Birmingham. 0121 248 0708
ikon-gallery.co.uk
Until 21 March 2010
Free entry

To celebrate the year of the Tiger in the Chinese New Year, Tiger Beer have collaborated with artists around the UK to create art that explores the elements that compose the Chinese zodiac which include earth, wood, metal, fire and water. The artists will be pushed to the limits of their creativity, using a multitude of techniques such as engraving, interactive arts and installations to represent their given element. The daring Josef Valentino, who took the assignment on the premise that only artists who pushed the boundaries of art and imagination be involved, will curate all of the UK shows.

In accordance with this ethos, Walsall artist Chu has been chosen as the Birmingham representative and has been entrusted with the task of representing Wood. Having grown up in Walsall, Chu built himself a formidable reputation in the graffiti world during the 80’s and has since gone on to work with the staggeringly talented Banksy and Jamie Hewlett (Gorrilaz). Now a resident of London where he is a studio artist, he returns to his hometown to push Birmingham’s artistic threshold once more, challenging his townsfolk’s perceptions of what art can be. His creation, a bespoke 3 dimensional wooden cube filled with 3-d art, is as much a scientific triumph as an artistic one and will examine in one piece a section of Chinese history and the future of art.

See Chu’s work on from February 15 to 19 at Boxxed, 104-108 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, Birmingham.

Check the website for events taking place across the UK.

We’ll be at the launch to see what Chu is up to so check back for an update.

Words: Lee Hall

This is the story of Gabrielle Chanel (Audrey Tautou, Amélie, The Da Vinci Code), who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey becomes the legendary couturier that embodied the modern woman and became a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style.

As a little girl, Gabrielle is sent with her sister to an orphanage in the heart of France, where she waits in vain every Sunday for her father to come for her. A few years later Gabrielle is a humble seamstress by day, stitching hems at the back of a provincial tailor’s shop, whilst by night she is a cabaret performer with a weak voice who sings to an audience of drunken soldiers.

One night she meets middle-aged aristocrat Etienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde, (Entre ses mains/In His Hands, Podium) who offers her a safe haven as a young courtesan amongst the idle and decadent of French society. Reborn as Coco, a rebel who finds the conventions of her time oppressive and instead dresses in her lovers’ clothes, she soon encounters the friends and lovers who will shape her life through triumph and tragedy, and who inspire her ascent to the pinnacle of Fashion legend…

Also starring Alessandro Nivola (Junebug, Jurassic Park III), Emmanuelle Devos (The Beat that My Heart Skipped, Read My Lips) and Marie Gillain (L’Enfer, Female Agents, Le Bossu), Coco Before Chanel is directed by Anne Fontaine (The Girl From Monaco) from a screenplay she co-wrote with her sister Camille and with the collaboration of Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons), Catherine Leterrier created the original costumes, Stephen Jones and Pippa Cleator the fabulous hats, and the production was given the assistance of the Maison CHANEL, who opened their archives and collections.

Out now To Own On DVD & Blu-ray.

We have 3 copies of Coco Before Chanel to give away on Blu ray.

To enter join the Fused Mailing list and then send an email including your name, address, telephone number and date of birth to competitions@fusedmagazine.com putting the name of the competition in the Subject box.

Deadline for entries is: Noon on 18th December, 2009.

Anyone visiting the gift shop at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh museum before 9th January 2010 will find an inspiring range of jewellery made by Birmingham jewellery designer maker Sara Preisler to commemorate the museum’s current exhibition of previously unseen letters from Vincent to his brother Theo shortly before he died.  Having previously worked with prestigious clients such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sara was approached by the Van Gogh museum’s curators and buyer earlier this year to design and manufacture a range of work to complement the exhibition.

Across the channel in Birmingham at Sara Preisler’s own eponymously named Gallery/Workshop at the Custard Factory in Digbeth, from 1st December you will not only be able to buy one of the items in the collection – including cufflinks and rings for men, beautifully inscribed with Van Gogh’s own hand-writing  – you will also be able to get a glimpse behind the scenes at the commission and design process that Sara undertook including photographs and sketches of work in progress.

Sara’s exhibition ‘Scenes from a commission – an exclusive insight at a Van Gogh Museum’ has been coordinated to coincide with this year’s Brilliantly Birmingham jewellery festival and will run at the Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA from 1st December 2009.

Jewellery prices begin at £70   Further information about Brilliantly Birmingham go to http://www.brilliantlybirmingham.com

During the 4th to 8th November Birmingham’s Eastside is being taken over by 100 artists for the second contemporary art festival organised by BCAF (Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum).

Featuring a number of the city’s artist led projects The Event will be held at a variety of established, new and slightly more unusual spaces throughout Digbeth.

Digbeth’s previous guise as an area of manufacturing has been slowly transforming in to the city’s Creative Quarter or ‘Eastside’. Artists have always been resourceful and where they move in to old and disused spaces to hone their craft a community builds around them – this is of course how The Custard Factory came in to being.

So it’s with no surprise that when the steel bashers moved out and abandoned their factories the artists moved in and new spaces emerged. Several of these new spaces will be open to the public for the first time including Grand Union’s unit on Fazeley Industrial Estate, Fazeley Street, a temporary space at 119 Floodgate Street which will be home to Mona Casey Projects for the duration and Crowd6’s use of fellow artist group The Lombard Method’s raw space at 68a Lombard Street, B12.

We’ve picked out our highlights of The Event that shouldn’t be missed.

Join Mark Essen for his roaming Record Exchange. He’ll be popping up at most of the venues as well as The Anchor Inn on Bradford Street (5 Nov). Not only can you debate, negotiate and swap records but you can also try the specially made ‘The Event Brew’. For the Friday night official launch (6 Nov) Essen will lead a performance of “and you will know us by the trail of Morris men” where Morris dancers will escort the audience from each venue to the after party at Eastside Projects on Heath Mill Lane.
If you are feeling lonely and need something else in your life then everyday at 10am and 2pm join The Family who will engage you with a variety of ‘activities’. Taking their inspiration from the dubious cults that offer comfort to the lonely and confused a.a.s. will live together at Birmingham Central Backpackers on Coventry Street and invite you to join them each day. They still have spaces left to live with them for 24-hours – call them on 07806 50 27 26.

The flat-capped life of the Pigeon fancier is relived by [insertspace] who will be opening their Pigeon Loft to visitors from 2-4pm on Friday 6, Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 at The Rea Garden, 1-8 Floodgate Street, B5. Having built the loft and reared pigeons artists Alex Lockett and Ian England’s practice combines their interests in nature’s relationship with culture, as well as traditional and contemporary modes of communication.
Latest artist led initiative Grand Union open up their new Fazeley Street home to host an artists’ publishing fair on Friday 6 from 12pm. Stick around until 2pm and you can see Calum F. Kerr and his Book Coat, a portable garment containing over 50 individual artists’ books.

Be part of the art from 8pm on Friday 6th at Eastside Projects on Heath Mill Lane. Stan’s Cafe will be hosting a continuous dialogue of visitors to the exhibition commenting on their every move. From 9pm there will be a live performance by Juneau Projects who invite the audience to become their percussion – prepare to get involved.

If you want a more rounded view of The Event then a great way to engage with the artist community and see the continually changing face of Digbeth is through the free, guided tours which leave from Eastside Cafe everyday at 3pm.

The Event Talks
Saturday 7 November, 2-5pm at Eastside Projects
A programme of talks to investigate the role of the artist led festival within contemporary arts practice. Implicit within this is an investigation of the role of consortium working, both as part of a forum but also within the wider context of the region in which the activity is based. ‘The Event Talks’ aims to examine the impact of artist led activity on the creative industries and its role within regeneration. Furthermore these talks seek to question the autonomy of artist led activity within a wider political agenda. ‘The Event Talks’ will provide insight into previous, key artist led activity from UK, through presentations and moderated discussion. Speakers include Katy Woods (Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum), Milika Muritu (Cell Project Space), Chris Brown (a-n and g39). Chaired by Adam Sutherland (Grizedale Arts)
Places are free but space is limited. To book email kaye@the-event.org

For a full timetable and information on all the performances, events and interventions taking place visit the-event.org.

Information Point: Eastside Cafe, 101 Coventry Street, B5

Various venues throughout Eastside, Birmingham
4-8 November, 12-5pm
the-event.org

“Minutes”, a new creation from Siobhan Davies, is performed continuously for four hours each day by five different dancers. Accompanying the dance is a new drum piece “A Solo in the Doldrums” by artist Anri Sala.

“The Collection” also includes a film installation “Lying in Wait” by Idris Khan and Sarah Warsop, which is open in the dance studio at The Custard Factory, also at 1-5 pm for free.

Image: Idris Khan and Sarah Warsop. Lying in Wait. Photo Sam Collins

This is your last chance to see Birmingham-based painter Graham Chorlton first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery in London. Closing this Saturday (3rd October) the show is curated by Fused magazine contributor Matt Price at the Master Piper gallery which opened in spring of this year next door to the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth North, and following the lead of other fashionable London galleries such as The Approach, is situated above a fine pub.

The exhibition, Hotel Minerva, features 14 recent and new works by one of the West Midlands’ most accomplished painters – Chorlton won the prize for painting at the Birmingham Open at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2007, as well as first prize at the Leamington Gallery Open later that year.

Some of the works included in the new exhibition are from a series of paintings of the Bristol Road that were first exhibited at the University of Birmingham in 2008. Other works are of buildings and urban landscapes from much further afield, whether a bleak hotel in Lugano, Switzerland, the exterior of a casino in Monte Carlo, or a 1960s shopping centre somewhere in Sweden. The paintings are lonely, melancholy depictions of architecture, civil engineering, interiors and street scenes, often depicted at night and usually without human presence, but never without humanity and an air of excitement and mystery.

Master Piper
Above The Three Stags Pub
67—69 Kennington Road
London
SE1 7PZ
Wed—Fri 12—6pm
Sat—Sun by appointment

Image Credit: Hotel Minerva, 2007. Oil and acrylic on canvas 63.5 x 76.2 cm. Courtesy the artist and Master Piper, London.
Photo: Stuart Whipps.

In 1974, the most celebrated American R&B acts of the time came together with the most renowned musical groups in Southern Africa for a 12-hour, three-night long concert held in Kinshasa, Zaire. The pipe dream of musician Hugh Masekela and producer Stewart Levine, this music festival became a reality when they convinced boxing promoter Don King to combine the event with “The Rumble in the Jungle,” the epic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, previously chronicled in the Academy Award winning documentary “When We Were Kings.”Soul Power is a verité documentary, entirely composed of footage shot in 1974 at the legendary music festival (dubbed “Zaire ’74”). It shows the experiences and performances of such musical luminaries as James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, Miriam Makeba, among a host of others. At the peak of their talents and the height of their careers, these artists were inspired by this return to their African roots, as well as the enthusiasm of the Zairian audience, to give the performances of their lives. The concert has achieved mythological significance as the definitive Africa(n)-American musical event of the 20th Century.

The Basement has the amazing privilege of putting on the only showing of this film in Birmingham followed by a set from 3 amazing DJs Carlton (Coldrice/ TCB) plus Mark & Layla (Education In Sound) playing funk, soul and all things rock and roll. Get Involved!

Tickets are £5 in advance and can be bought from The Basement, but readers of Fused can get in for the bargain price of £3 just email aimee@thebasementbirmingham.co.uk but you better get in there as tickets are very ltd. This night is going to kick it!