In a crowded storeroom at Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary art gallery, its director Jonathan Watkins is unwrapping the pictures for his latest show. His excitement is infectious. He’s like a big kid on Christmas day. This exhibition marks the start of Ikon’s 50th season, for which he’s devised a special programme — a history of Ikon, which doubles as a compact history of contemporary art.
To celebrate Ikon’s half-century, Watkins is mounting shows by five artists, one from each decade, who’ve exhibited here during the past 50 years. First up is the photorealist John Salt — the first artist ever shown at Ikon. He’ll be followed in April by Ian Emes, whose short animated film, French Windows, was made to accompany ‘One of These Days’, a song by Pink Floyd. Cornelia Parker’s ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ (now in the Tate collection) was commissioned by Ikon back in 1988. She’ll be reconstructing this artwork here in July. In September Yinka Shonibare takes centre stage with his strange interpretations of Britain’s imperial past (readers may recall his ship in a bottle on the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square, now on permanent display outside the National Maritime Museum). This retrospective concludes with Julian Opie, who was building his high-rise sculptures here in 2001 when the Twin Towers went up in flames. ‘We went upstairs and watched the whole thing unfold on TV,’ recalls Watkins. Opie will be back here in November.
Ikon’s 50th birthday is a convenient peg for this greatest hits collection, but Watkins has always had a keen interest in the gallery’s past. Ten years ago, he mounted a show devoted to Ikon in the 1960s. In 2010 he surveyed the 70s. This summer he’ll be reassessing Ikon’s output in the 1980s.
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