One of Browne's Pyrite Radios

 Without any hint of bias towards its John Henry Chamberlain structure, I can quite happily say that Ikon Gallery is actually my favourite building in Birmingham. There isn’t much competition really; I’m sure most people would rather be walking through a gothic revival structure than a lot of today’s contemporary architecture.

Anyway, I was in the West Midlands for the weekend, so a trip to Ikon was rather inevitable. I’d went to the exhibition opening only a month ago, but I originally hadn’t spent much time in Sarah Browne’s How to Use Fool’s Gold exhibition.

My favourite work is her film entitled Second Burial at Le Blanc, in which we are given insight into Le Blanc, a small town not too far away from the Loire Valley which is (was) the last remaining place to be using the Franc as their currency. Accompanying the exhibition on its opening was a fragile-looking time ticker encased underneath a large glass dome. This contraption actually counted down the seconds until Le Blanc would have to adopt the Euro, and it raises issues of mortality and things ceasing to be. However, when I went back this weekend, the time ticker was nowhere to be seen. The time had come for Le Blanc to abandon the Franc, and thus in its place was a short film screening, looping to the viewer footage of the small French town the day they converted to the Euro… it was all very poignant.

I picked up one of her newspaper publications called L’excès, l’accélération et la dépense (On Excess, Acceleration and Expenditure) whilst I was in the exhibition, which I’m just reading through now actually.

© jingtea.com

Before heading back though, I was treated to one of its splendid green teas at Café Ikon. They really are amazing; I can’t get enough of the Jing crockery they use too. If you’ve ever been to Leaf in Liverpool then you’ll understand where I’m coming from here- they’re also a fan of the cute one-person-teapots (albeit, they tend to use the more industrial Tea-ieres^TM)

www.sarahbrowne.com
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk
www.thisisleaf.co.uk

Labels: ART DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, Gothic Revival, Hamish Fulton, How to use Fool's Gold, Ikon Gallery, John Henry Chamberlain, Pyrite Radios, Sarah Browne