48Sheet writer-in-residence by Paul Wright

The billboard is dead. Long live the billboard. 48sheet.com

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Raqs Media Collective

MadeIn Company Photographed by Leah Carless

Photographed by Helen Ogbourn

From the 2 – 29 April 2012 up to 100 10ft x 20ft 48Sheet billboards will be utilised as platforms for creative expression by 29 artists to transform the city of Birmingham into an urban gallery. Regional, national and international including MadeIn Company (Shanghai) and Raqs Media Collective (Delhi) will create large scale work to exhibit within public space, in response to the projects overarching theme of ‘cultural curiosity‘.

Claire Farrell, Director of EC-Arts

Prof Chris Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neil, Executive Dean of Birmingham Insitute of Art and Design

Preface.

The original design city.

48Sheet aims to create a large scale artistic intervention.

With special thanks to 48Sheet Advisory Board members

Birmingham, the manufacturing centre of the United

Glen Howells Architects and the Ikon are world defining

This is for people to discover within their everyday commute

for supporting the commissioning, selection and curatorial

Kingdom has always valued and always will value the arts.

organisations who are committed to Birmingham and the

or journey across the city and parts of the region.

process of the project:

Birmingham knows that its centralisation to manufacturing

region because they know the city enriches them, their

Artists have responded and challenged the repetitive rhythm

is best led by a community that understands the relationship

people and their work.

of a traditional advertising campaig. This has created a

Professor Chris Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neil

between sometimes crude industrial process and the

So, turning Birmingham itself into a major urban art gallery

network of unique and distinctive responses that will raise

Executive Dean of Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

beautiful and refined. Birmingham is the original design

through the vision of EC Arts and the JC Decaux is further

levels of consciousness and arouse curiosity.

Jonathan Watkins

city. Despite the perception that manufacturing has all but

evidence that we care about our environment and we want

Advertising free clusters of billboards have been selected

Director Ikon

disappeared in the UK, nothing could be further from the

to feed and challenge our creativity.

and mapped to create several routes to encourage people to

Professor Jiang Jiehong

truth. Birmingham continues to define the high value and

48Sheet is a remarkably ambitious project and it sits

navigate, explore, discover and rediscover their city from

Director of Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (BIAD)

desirable because it is a city that has always invested in arts

comfortably within the context of this remarkably ambitious

a different perspective.

Glenn Howells

that are beautiful, sublime, challenging and cordial.

city.

Director Glenn Howells Architects,

For a city to be successful there needs to be a proper

Nigel Edmondson

and balanced blend of innovation, skills, connectivity and

City Design Manager Birmingham City Council

environmental quality. Birmingham has this blend and so

Beverley Nielsen

continues to develop and attract the talented and ambitious

Director Idea Birmingham

from across the world. The CBSO, Jaguar Landrover,

Sophia Tarr Art Producer & Consultant

Steve Rosenthal

Mary Mazziotti Photographed by Martin Pickard

Tom Tebby Photographed by Nicole Scribble

Raqs Media Collective Photographed by Helen Ogbourn

Ben Long Photographed by Leah Carless

Matt Watkins Live installation 2 April 2012 Photographed by Leah Carless

48Sheet Programme 2012

Madein Company

Steve Rosenthal

Ian Richards

Shanghai

London

Raqs Media Collective

Stephen Brandes

Tom Tebby

Delhi

Cork

Birmingham

Workshop: Rip of Brum with Steve Parsons

Mary Mazziotti

Elizabeth Rowe

Candice Smith

1.30 – 5pm Wednesday 25 April

Pittsburgh

Birmingham

Ben Long

Redhawk Logistica

Maurice Docherty

London

Birmingham

Berlin

All events will take place at 48Sheet project space, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1XL Hint

Artist talk: Stephen Brandes 2 – 2.40pm Thursday 19 April

Workshop: Screen Printing with Jim O’Raw 12 – 5pm Saturday 21 April

Workshop: Abstract low tech with Candice Smith

Ta k e n

1.30 – 5pm 23 Monday April

Papergirl event: Tea, cake and bikes 6 – 9pm Tuesday 24 April

Workshop: Shanty towns with Faith Pearson 2 – 5pm Friday 27 April

Event: Collage party with Elizabeth Rowe 12pm – 5pm Saturday 28 April

Papergirl distribution day 12pm onwards Saturday 28 April

Shail Belani

Dan Burwood

Helen Sweeting

Gerard Hanson

Mumbai

Birmingham

Oxford

Lucy Mclauchlan

Glenn Anderson

Faith Pearson

Baptist Coehlo

Birmingham

Mumbai

Dream like purple old building, very modern for its time has taken over the smell of chocolate in my garden all through the night and we don't want to lose it

Isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the plumage beautiful?

Matt Watkins

Just say the first thing that pops into your mind Harry Blackett & Robin Kirkham

Mark Murphy & Craig Earp

Tidal Grace

Birmingham

Vancouver

Lawrence Roper

Steve Parsons

Jim Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;raw

Birmingham

48sheet.com

Ben Long Photographed by Pam Sandwich

Elizabeth Rowe MadeIn Company Photographed by Leah Carless

http://www.birminghamviewpoint.com/48sheet

http://48sheet.com/map/cycle-routes

Birmingham Viewpoint competition.

Cycle routes & map.

Shail Bela

Ben Long

Mary Mazziotti

Photographed by Patrick Dandy

Photographed by Tim Cornbill

Photographed by Martin Pickard

Raqs Media Collective

Helen Sweeting

Tom Tebby

Photographed by Helen Ogbourn

Photographed by Edward Moss

Photographed by Nicole Scribble

Matt Watkins

Helen Sweeting

Mary Mazziotti

Photographed by Elliot Brown

Photographed by Dave Harte

Photographed by Leah Carless

48Sheet Project Space, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1XL

Project space.

48Sheet Project Space, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1XL

Draw off.

Text by Paul Wright. 48Sheet writer-in-residence, Brussels. April 2012

In between, around and about. A quick insight into what happens when walking and looking are made political acts; some ways that visual art helps re-frame our perceptions of Birmingham’s industrial landscape; Isn’t the plumage beautiful?

and why working in coopetition is good for visual artists.

Walking and looking

Just say the first thing that pops into your mind

Birmingham is a city of two-million. It’s a place where local and

Walking provides scope to reengage with parts of the city once

regional artists sit alongside large corporate advertising – and

forgotten and looking becomes an act of critical engagement.

they’re vying for your attention! It’s a city of artistic enterprise

Putting art in an advertising space may make us once again

and social tradition held together by a pedestrianized

critical of the advertising billboard space; but also don’t forget

commercial centre. The philosophy backing up 48 Sheet

to look at the urban landscape around these sites. By using

– a sprawling public art project – involves staging walking

art in this way 48Sheet encourages advertisers to see us as

and cycle routes around the city. The point being to render

more than just puppet-consumer-spectators with a buck in

a minds-eye collage of the city. This type of civic-minded

our back pocket.

activity recalls the fertile nomadic practices of the fluxus city-

We have feelings and desires beyond that. And walking and

happenings of the 70’s. Back then, artists unearthed poetic

looking brings us closer to exploring those feelings. The

statements by carving up decaying buildings, and stumbled

project offers a way for us to alter our beliefs about how we

on joyous moments by getting the public to join in with their

want to engage in our city. Jane Warnick of the campaigning

musically-rhythmic performances.

organisation Building Futures says that the best projects

This type of happening pioneered re-engagement both for

get people ‘to smile, stop and ponder, to generate memory.

artist and the public with what was already there in their cities.

To develop a reaction. Or simply see anew a place that has

This year, 48Sheet reimagines a fluxus-happening, this time

dropped out of our view’. Walking, or better still, wondering

on the streets of Birmingham. The invitation is for the public

around and looking are purposeful activities that help us do

and they’re being asked to ‘encounter art in a public space’.

this.

It’s an opportunity to reengage with the poetry and joy of the city. The project combines flamboyant gestures of art with the

Harry Blackett & Robin Kirkham

human-ized activities of walking and looking.

A pop-up gallery

Alter-modern city-users

There won’t be any rousing done by rebel advertising slogans.

as they have the gallery space. This type of activity has put

48Sheet (2012) is a public art project celebrating art, people

The city is a place in flux, and urban scientists Park and

And you’ll notice that the paternalistic messages that usually

collective practice on a par with cultural activism. There’s so

and the city. The project brings colour to the shadows left

Burgess identified it as a space governed my many of the

flourish, where advertising billboards colonise the streets, have

much of the stuff there’s a magazine dedicated to it – you

by the city’s industrial decay. Bringing people into the city to

same forces of Darwinian evolution. Quite colourfully they

been pasted over. This means you won’t be told how to feel

might know it as ‘Adbusters’. Yet 48Sheet is recreating an

explore it is a far cry from a time when Birmingham, UK was

said ‘the city is rooted in the habits and customs of the people

or how good to look. You’ll simply be able to observe at close

outdoor gallery without being reactionary. The project is

notoriously studied as a blueprint of ‘delinquent planning’.

who inhabit it.’ One objective driving the 48Sheet project is

range the fidelity of fine detail in the art works. And observed

simply looking at ways in which to move beyond established

The city of Birmingham today thoughtfully and thankfully

to broker discussion about how the visual landscape shapes

from across the street you’ll get a feeling of the colour, form,

visual boundaries to question anything and everything urban

occupies discussions about urban renaissance with gusto.

our collective habits and customs. On this occasion they have

content. In all there are 100 advertising hoardings for your

ranging from the vilification/commercialization of graffiti and

And it is a poster-city known for its diverse culture and

ensured artists get a free hand. The outcome is that for four

public-sighted enjoyment. It amounts to art spanning 30,000

colonies of new retail/ living spaces that pop-up.

natural city-beat rhythms. This city’s boundary is a place

weeks in April 2012 the commercially-charged landscape gets

sq ft, or a third of one floor in Birmingham’s Selfridges retail

So inevitably there is going to be a tension between the

where people and place are seen to be gradually changing.

re-faced. The outcome is a visual art project with an assertive

space.

commercial (advertising) space and questions about the

And buoyant words like frequency, blend and erosion give a

viewpoint that questions the type of society we live in today.

There’s a beautiful vagueness to it all. This is its strength.

social value of art. Also issues of permission to paint and

positive spin to the conversations.

Art-clusters at locations throughout the cities boundary have

the relevance of brickwall white-cube gallery spaces come to

Architects love building here; shoppers like the choices being

been chosen as a way to separate and organise the work for

mind.

offered; local councils all of a sudden can look popular;

your enjoyment. This way you’ll encounter wildly creative

Greater interest though will be to ensure enjoyment of

institutions keenly work out ways of getting more people

work which doesn’t have to compete against the backdrop of

exploring the city boundary. And you’ll get giddy doing so.

interested in arts and education; and street artists take up the

advertising messages.

These billboards require you to move your head to at least

mantle as moral messengers, expressing opposition to the

The actions of the 48Sheet artists are temporary. Their

30 degree tilt upwards. In the specific cuts and remixes of

system.

nomadic individual practices materialise and overlap for four

artworks there’s glitchy beat chimes; noisy sound clash-

These professionals and keen-amateurs are alter-modern and

weeks. Senseless? No! Socio-cultural agitation? Maybe! An

scapes; testing repetitive rhythms; evocative shapes

city-users. It’s their imaginations and visions that work in

ambition for the 48Sheet project is to make opportunities for

and form, discordant elements; aural textures; sobering

coopetition with one another. Sociologist Francis Gladstone

nomadic artists to combine their visions. Berlin painter and

meditations; tricksy puns; otherworldly psycho-social skits;

foretold about these lovely folk. In his book The politics of

pop-art activist Jim Avignon sees the experience of working

poetic drawings; and botanical fantasies.

Planning (1976) he said ‘change lies in the hands of city-

together as encouragement for artists to ‘think about possible

users’. And in a cauldron of sweat and hard labour, public art

connections between [their] work and someone elses.’

provocateurs EC Arts are using the 48Sheet project to make

Artists have on occasion responded abusively to billboards

this myth a reality.

Dr Jiang Jiehong, Director of Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design

http://papergirlbirmingham.tumblr.com

Cultural exchange.

Papergirl.

MadeIn Company

MadeIn Company (Shanghai) and Raqs Media Collective

As an exciting extension of this Guangzhou Triennial and

48Sheet support Kate Grundy bringing Papergirl to

Papergirl event: Tea, cake and bikes

(Delhi) were commissioned to produce 45 new works

cultural exchange between the East and the West, the

Birmingham. Papergirl is a global project that aims to open

6 – 9pm Tuesday 24 April

for 48Sheet billboards. Co-curators, also of the Fourth

curators invited the internationally acclaimed artist groups,

the art world into the urban streets of everyday life. It is an

48Sheet project space, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1XL

Guangzhou Triennial, were Jonathan Watkins, Director of

MadeIn Company (Shanghai) and Raqs Media Collective

intervention seeking to surprise people and to heartily

Ikon Gallery and Dr Jiang Jiehong, Director of Centre for

(Delhi), to produce new work for 45 billboards across the

upturn the notable predictability of day to day life.

Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design

city of Birmingham.

(BCU). 48Sheet project featured within the Guangzhou Triennial as an international off-site exhibition by connecting the work produced by MadeIn for the Unseen exhibited across fifteen 400 square foot 96Sheet billboards as part of 48Sheet. Guangzhou Triennial, is hosted within the Guangdong Museum of Art was established in 2002 by Dr Luo Yiping and has become one of the most influential contemporary art events in Asia.

Papergirl distribution day 12pm onwards Saturday 28 April

48Sheet Advisory Board & Project Partners: Glenn Howells Glenn Howells Architects Jonathan Watkins Ikon Gallery Professor Chris O’Neil Birmingham Institute of Art & Design Dr Jiang Jiehong Birmingham Institute of Art & Design Nigel Edmondson Birmingham City Council Beverley Nielsen Idea Birmingham Sophia Tarr Freelance Artistic Consultant Claire Farrell EC-Arts

Glenn Howells of Glenn Howells Architects

“48Sheet was marvelously subversive across the entire city. It challenged our tolerance to increasing levels of advertising by swapping it for art. Throughout April Birmingham’s pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and passengers were treated to an unexpected range of ideas and images from around the world.”

48sheet.com

Contributors Paul Wright @Out_Of_ Paul Wright is editor of www.urban-language-arts.org.His studio Out-Of-Phrase is based in Brussels.

Ian Richards @heavyobject http://heavyobject.tumblr.com

Book title: Inspired by the book Soft City Subtitle: What Cities Do To Change Us And How They Change The Way We Live, Think and Feel By: Jonathan Rahan Published: 1974

2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 29 April 2012 Birmingham

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