As we prepare to bid farewell to Ikon Eastside ahead of it’s April closure, they’re gearing up for a rather special three night music festival, Rites of Spring, from 7 – 9 April.

Celebrating the venue’s five year contribution to Birmingham’s cultural scene, the festival welcomes headliners Modified Toy Orchestra, Martin Creed and his band and Fyfe Dangerfield, along with the first UK video installation from US band Matmos.

The full line up showcases a collection of folk, pop and electronic musical offerings, from local talent along with further afield artists.

Thursday 7 April
Modified Toy Orchestra
epic45
Shady Bard
Poppy Tibbetts
Friends of the Stars

Friday 8 April
Martin Creed and his band
David Cunningham
Matmos (video set)
Is I Cinema
Arc Vel

Saturday 9 April
Fyfe Dangerfield
Lulu and the Lampshades
Boat to Row
Young Runaways
Timothy Parkes

Tickets are £12 (£10 for students), or for the full festival £30 (£27 for students) and can be booked online or by calling O844 87O OOOO

Birmingham City Council

At least not as we know it.

More Canals Than Venice

Annabel has said that, needing to prioritise paying work, she’s changing her approach to running the site:

I intend to discover the new in the city, but at a more leisurely pace and in more depth

Which doesn’t sound all that bad really.

The Yam Yam

However, The Yam Yam, a Walsall-based aggregator of local news, is shutting up shop completely. Here’s a fuller explanation of what that’s all about. I was aware of the site but, not living in Walsall, had no particular reason for following it very closely – the number and content of the comments tell you how much the site was appreciated though.

Next?

In a few weeks time we’re going to hear about which of the established arts organisations and council services aren’t going to be supported any more. That’s not going to be pleasant. There’ll still be plenty of good stuff for us to write about on CiB, and plenty of individuals doing good things, but we won’t know what we’re missing.

On the web side of things, it’s worth remembering that most of the genuinely interesting websites around are actually quite fragile things and, if they’re run for personal enjoyment, it’s probably best not to assume they’ll be around forever either. See also Jon Bounds’ comments last month when the harmless bit of fun that was Brummie of the Year turned nasty on BiNS:

I’ll continue to ruminate as to whether the site does its job or is best closed.

On the other hand, I’m all for a bit of a shake-up, some new voices and some new ways of doing things. We’ll see how things pan out over the next little while.

UPDATE

I forgot to end this post with some bunnies:

The large exhibition space at the heart of Digbeth, has provided the perfect setting for large-scale work, video and events over the past few years. It’s hosted work by internationally recognised artists, including Andy Warhol, Damián Ortega, Józef Robakowski and Siobhan Davies Dance.

Rites of Spring, a three day music festival featuring Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, Modified Toy Orchestra and Epic45 will be the last event held at Ikon Eastside, from 7 – 9 April.

We are extremely saddened to be losing Ikon Eastside, but our commitment to bringing internationally recognised art to the city is unwavering. Looking to the future, our goal remains to create a permanent museum of contemporary art for Birmingham.

– Jonathan Watkins, Ikon Director

It’s not all sad news though, since Ikon are intending to keep up their involvement with the Eastside district, focusing instead on site-specific events and promoting cultural regeneration through their membership of the Eastside Contemporary Art Consortium. Their current study into the feasibility of this permanent museum, (‘Ikon Two’) also remains unaffected.

Brilliantly Birmingham kicked off together with the fifth annual FLUX exhibition, Aedas Presents launched a new monthly art programme and Art of Ideas finally arrived with a host of associated events running over four days.

The We Are Birmingham Shop opened its doors with a drinks reception, Chris gave a debrief of the Arts Council briefing on funding and the West Midlands creative jobs board, Jobplot, returned with a fresh makeover.

November also saw the launch of The Pilot Project, Jennifer Tee’s exhibition, Memento Park opened at Eastside Projects, and Chris attended the wedding of the year.

Lucy McLauchlan returned with her paintbrushes to add something a little interesting to the Moseley Road hoardings, while VIVID launched their latest project, Language, and as December approached, the Christmas fairs sprung into action.

As winter kicked in, we bid a Blonde Farewell to Ikon Eastside, got crafty with Craftspace, said hello to Creative Central and looked ahead to Flatpack and Fierce’s joint 2011 venture.

The BPo reported on the possibility of this happening yesterday with a few quotes hinting at the situation at Ex Cathedra and Performances Birmingham from people who work there.

Ikon Eastside will be closing their doors for winter and bidding a ‘blonde farewell’ on 3 December.

Starting at 8pm, they’re inviting you to party with them into the evening, taking inspiration from their final exhibition of 2010, AVPD’s Hitchcock Hallway, with the optional dress code of a blonde or white wig.

Alfred Hitchcock is renowned for films featuring blonde leading women such as Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren. Music, light and atmosphere all play with notions of mistaken identity and voyeurism.

Fazeley Studios might host some fine digital media companies, Ikon Eastside and our own fair office but there’s still some work to be done apparently. That or the guy’s a numpty.

Jennifer Tee: Local Myths at Eastside Projects
Exhibition continues to 6 November 2010

Eastside Projects presents the first UK solo show by Amsterdam-based artist Jennifer Tee, including existing sculptures, and a 3.5 metre tall carved marble column that will be a long-term work in the gallery, eventually to be located in a permanent site in the Eastside area.

AVPD: Hitchcock Hallway at Ikon Eastside
Exhibition continues to 14 November 2010

Ikon Eastside presents Hitchcock Hallway, an installation by Danish artist duo AVPD, whose work typically consists of complex spatial and perceptual experiments that analyse the ways in which people respond to their environments.

Jamie Shovlin: Hiker Meat at Grand Union
Exhibition continues to 13 November 2010

Grand Union is proud to present an exhibition of new work by London-based artist Jamie Shovlin. His latest project Hiker Meat examines the degree to which a film director (or artist) has control over their works’ intended message, exploring the inherent tension within any creative endeavour.

An artist’s talk with Jamie Shovlin will take place on 12 November.

While I’m at it, I may as well give a mention to the other exhibitions which have recently opened at Ikon Brindley Place, Kitagawa Utamaro, Donald Judd and Anthony Goicolea, which are also running until 14 November.

Read down – there’s a competition for free tickets later on in this post.

I’m conscious that I’ve not mentioned International Dance Festival Birmingham so much on here over the past month. Partly that’s because I’ve been busy working on it and going to just about every event that I could.

There’s only a couple of days left but still a chance to catch some good stuff. Tonight, there’s:

• Cruel by Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker (Birmingham Hippodrome)
• Self Unfinished by Xavier Le Roy (Ikon Eastside)
• Kathak Duet by Abhimanyu & Vidha Lal (The Patrick Centre)

And tomorrow (the last day) there’s:

• A second chance to catch Cruel (Birmingham Hippodrome)
• Put Your Foot Down (St Martin’s Square, Bullring)

Put Your Foot Down is a big, free event that’ll run from midday to 6pm. Worth checking out, because the festival has been doing big, free public events very well (for instance, Utopia was great).

I saw Self Unfinished at Ikon Eastside last night and it’s probably the most ‘out there’ event in the entire programme – as David Massingham (festival co-director) said afterwards, it’s probably the furthest you can get from Strictly Come Dancing.

I’m off to Cruel tonight though – athletic Brazilian dancers, knives, spinning mirrors and a ruddy great big globe-shaped chandelier. That’s entertainment. Speaking of which…

Competition

We’ve been given a pair of tickets for the spectacular-looking Cruel tonight. If you want your name to go into a draw for them then email ‘CRUEL’ to createdinbirmingham@gmail.com. We’ll do the draw at about 2pm and let the winner know the good news.