New Large Cow

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After many years of a lovely but slightly out of date website, Hunt Emerson has relaunched Large Cow where he’s selling artwork and archiving cool stuff from the past. Of particular note are pieces from the Birmingham Arts Lab which he was heavily involved with in the 1970’s such as this print:

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There’s shockingly little online about the Birmingham Arts Lab other than a few mentions here and there. It’s be good if someone could write a decent history of it, or if one’s already written, stick it online and send me a pointer.

9 Comments

  1. There was a small exhibition at Birmingham Art Gallery a few years back about the Arts Lab in Birmingham. An accompanying publication, perhaps still available from the Art Gallery shop, surfaced at the same time as the exhibition. I’ve got one somewhere in my attic !!

    Sadly, this seems to be a case of the recent past being overlooked and neglected.

    The Arts Lab morphed into The Triangle. Pogus Caesar has a trove of photographs of that period (late 1970’s/ early 1980’s), a period of intense creativity in the city, often of an inter cultural nature, which helped to re define the city in popular cultural terms. The Arts Lab and then The Triangle hosted, and also incubated, many talented individuals and companies and ass you say a proper history is due; as is the legacy of that incendiary period – late 1970’s into the mid 1980’s.

  2. There’s also fond references to the Arts Lab in Jonathan Coe’s quintessential Birmingham novel, The Rotters Club (adapted for BBC a few years back, and delivering FILM Birmingham as an unexpected consequence of its Isle Of Man production). As I recall, the elder Rotter buys some music (Gamelan music ?) for his girl friend from the Arts Lab.

    And while I’m here tapping away, let’s not forget the week long visit of Dennis Hopper (yes, Easy Rider himself entourage) to the Arts Lab / The Triangle in the early 1980’s with his acclaimed photo exhibition. If anyone has a pic of that visit, let me know. The enormous Hotel bill for his entourage was left unpaid for years and was the subject of year on year negotiation between the city’s hoteliers and the arts funders. But, hey !, life was duller then.

  3. You’re right, Pete – we do need a good history of the Arts Lab. In retrospect, it was an extraordinary place doing fantastic things and maybe there’s something useful for now to be learnt from what went on then.

    Once it had ‘morphed’ into the Triangle it was certainly in receipt of regular funding from West Midlands Arts (now Arts Council England, WM), and maybe they hold some documentation that may provide a programme and organisational history at least. I’ll ask!

  4. My only Hunt Emerson story is that back in 1990 or thereabouts I helped a girlfriend move into a new place; a room at the top of a shared house in Handsworth. Apparently Emerson had lived in the same room previously and covered the walls with his sketches and drawings. Sadly, the landlord had painted and papered over the lot, thinking them unsightly..

  5. There’s also fond references to the Arts Lab in Jonathan Coe’s quintessential Birmingham novel, The Rotters Club (adapted for BBC a few years back, and delivering FILM Birmingham as an unexpected consequence of its Isle Of Man production). As I recall, the elder Rotter buys some music (Gamelan music ?) for his girl friend from the Arts Lab.

    And while I’m here tapping away, let’s not forget the week long visit of Dennis Hopper (yes, Easy Rider himself entourage) to the Arts Lab / The Triangle in the early 1980’s with his acclaimed photo exhibition. If anyone has a pic of that visit, let me know. The enormous Hotel bill for his entourage was left unpaid for years and was the subject of year on year negotiation between the city’s hoteliers and the arts funders. But, hey !, life was duller then.

  6. I’ve been interested in doing a show on the Arts Lab Movement for *years*, but I doubt any funders would be as keen! This was a moment when creativity in the city was drawing national and international attention like never before or since. I’ve just finished curating the mac retrospective “Do You Remember the First Time?” (https://sch01ar.backpackit.com/pages/1342847)
    with my colleague Rob Hewitt, and I was hoping it might serve as a way in to this. I’m glad that others are interested. I believe Pogus has a picture of Dennis Hopper. The show at BM&AG featured prints and printmaking and was curated by Tessa Sidey.

  8. There used to be an article online about the Arts Lab movement of the 70s and 80s but can’t find it now. The Aston AL was the oldest and lasted well into the 90s. The MAC founders were ex AL iirc.

    It had the traditional arts lab spaces: gallery, bookshop, small cinema, meeting rooms and was pretty out-there in alt terms. The cinema programming was interesting, but it was impossible to hear the film when it rained.

    Phil Goodall’s photos some of which might be in BMAG archives were exhibited there. the ‘Mothers Pride’ exhibition was a well-liked collection. Wonder where it is now?

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