From 15th March – 14th June 2014, Eastside Projects will be proudly exhibiting the work of Bill Drummond, with a special preview evening starting from 6pm – 8pm tonight (14th March.)
The team at Eastside Projects have been working hard, preparing to host the first stage of Bill Drummond’s World Tour (2014 – 2025), ‘The 25 Paintings’. Prior to tonight’s preview evening, Bill Drummond has made the voyage to Birmingham, arriving yesterday (13th March) via a raft made from his own bed along the Grand Union Canal, beneath Spaghetti Junction. On this journey he brought with him four hundred and forty bunches of daffodils, and four hundred empty jam jars. Drummond will continue to live in Birmingham for 3 months before embarking onto the next stage of his journey.
Part of this journey will be detailed in ‘The 60 Posters‘, an evolving selection drawn from the over 500 Penkiln Burn Posters which will also be on display during the exhibition.
The central motif of the exhibition is the ’25 Paintings’ alluded to in the title, but Drummond describes his work as sculpture. The sculpture ‘The 25 paintings, begun in 2001, and will be complete on 28 April 2025 at the end of the ‘World Tour.’
The exhibition includes the ’25 paintings’, ‘The 60 Posters’, ‘The 25 Sixty Second Films’, three publications – the exhibition catalogue ‘The 25 Paintings’, ‘MAN MAKES BED’, and ‘MAN SHINES SHOES’ – and ten lectures, including three at Eastside Projects entitled ‘Art Versus Money’, ‘Painting Versus Sculpture’ and ‘Life Versus Death’.
This large collection itself will only be a small representation of Bill Drummond’s extensive life-long investigation into the world around him, and it is at this point that I will mention how difficult it is to shortly summarise his career. Very short (62 words), short (288 words) and very long (10, 565 words) biographies can be found at penkilnburn.com, detailing his work as a writer, musician, artist and just about everything else in between. The website is an excellent archive of Bill Drummond’s work and I would recommend looking through it to get a sense of his work before visiting (although it isn’t essential!)
Eastside Projects can be found in Digbeth, near the Custard Factory. They are open from Wednesday – Saturday between the hours of 12pm – 5pm. It’s free admission, and as well as the exhibition, there are a range of other talks and visiting artists that be seen here.
All pictures taken by Tracey Moberly.