Gillian Wearing: A Real Birmingham Family (2011-13) (press release)

Press Release

Gillian Wearing: A Real Birmingham Family (May 2011-2013)

Gillian Wearing. Family Monument Trento, (2008). Bronze sculpture. A real Birmingham family (2011-13) follows this similar project.

Ikon Gallery and artist Gillian Wearing present A Real Birmingham Family, a significant new commission that will result in a life-size sculpture of a local family, located in Centenary Square, near to the new Library of Birmingham.

The family immortalised in bronze— the “real Birmingham family”— will be chosen following a year-long search to find the family that best represents the city. Thousands of families are expected to nominate themselves, but rather than choosing the statistically average family, there will be a comparison of value judgments about authenticity, locality and what it is that essentially constitutes a family. Issues arising out of sexual politics (e.g. gay parenting), fostering, cultural diversity (embracing notions of the extended family), surrogacy and countless variations on the theme of marriage will be taken into consideration.

As part of the process Ikon will open a drop-in centre in Birmingham’s Pallasades Shopping Centre, above New Street Station, until 12 June 2011. Passers-by can learn more about the project, pose on a replica plinth and be photographed against a vast artist’s impression of the new library. These family snapshots will accumulate to form a fascinating and unique portrait of Birmingham as it is today.

The process of research and nomination will continue until April 2012, when a jury of well-known individuals and representatives of the city (including Gillian Wearing herself) will short-list and eventually choose the successful family.

The “real Birmingham family” will then model for the sculpture and be transformed by Gillian Wearing into a metallic likeness that fixes them in time for hundreds or even thousands of years. Unveiled to coincide with the inauguration of the new Library of Birmingham in 2013, the sculpture will be a celebration of everyday life— an assertion of the significance of those who are not usually celebrated— and a gesture that raises profound questions concerning the definition of family today.

Birmingham-born artist Gillian Wearing is well known for her enquiries into the parameters of social anthropology and recent history. The Real Birmingham Family builds upon her previous work in the city, Broad Street (2001) and Family History (2006), both presented by Ikon.

Gillian Wearing, artist, said: “It is the historic moment to ask ourselves what a family is, because the common visual concept is the one which comes from the media. An artificial image which has nothing to do with a real family. I am trying to objectify and monumentalise reality itself to fight against the stereotype.”

ads by artdesigncafe