INTERFACE
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
REVIEW
Re:location
X-ray factory, Smethwick
27 September – 11 October
Reviewed by: Simon Webb
Set in a previously derelict space in post-industrial Birmingham, 'Re:Location' is the kind of project that artists often talk about but somehow never quite manage to achieve. It is a huge, sprawling show with over sixty artists whose works touch on the relationship between work, leisure and industry. Brought about by the drive of its curator, builder-turned-artist Dave Pollard, and the hard work of a community of artists and creative people, it's impressive in its scale and determination to achieve democratic participation.
To be considered for the exhibition, artists were required to renovate the venue, transforming it into a space for showing contemporary art. The building is rich in history: its former tenants include an upholstery firm, Morris Minor cars and the Commercial X-ray Company. The show is split into two main parts – an outside 'urban area' complete with scaffold buildings, public sculpture and a boulevard of 'trees', and the factory, or work area. Inevitably the democratic ideal allows for all types of work, which by definition cannot be all things to all people. Some of the work reflects an active archeological process to the site, digging at the past. Julian Bull's x-ray-like photographs uncomfortably combine nuts and bolts with body parts, while John Rogers' text piece Under Your Skin There's A Real Nasty Mess, scattered around the site, hints at the notion of the human-as-machine. Martin Humphries' Throne Room is a circle of seats facing one another creating a platform for face-to-face interaction, and reflects the exhibition's egalitarianism.
Most of the work has something to say about the work/life process, but what is important is that this just the beginning of a much bigger long-term project. Only time will tell if it can nurture the ever-growing industry of artists of Birmingham.
Writer detail:
Simon Webb is an artist.
Venue detail:
re:location
Old X-Ray factory, Foundry Lane, Soho, Smethwick
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