Posts Tagged ‘ ArtsFest ’

Artsfest 2010

The poster has just wet itself with excitement at the coming of Artsfest (or artsfest, or ArtsFest depending on which bit of capitalisation on the website you pick) this coming weekend. Yes, there’s a lot that isn’t especially art(s), yes with it being so big it’s a problem picking out what you’d like to do or see — but suspend your cynicism and enjoy town being busy with things other than shopping for a weekend. Think of it as ‘Brumfest’ and hang your artistic pretentions. For once tho’ the programme is online in a usable format a few days before, I’d encourage you to dig through and recommend stuff to us and each other. The Comments box is yours…

The Twang for ArtsFest

Some will be pleased, some will vomit, some will think it's not such a bad choice even if they don't really like them. Some will wonder where the heck a 'Centenary Square Stage' is going to go. Would of been able to tell you sooner but the Artsfest blog has no RSS feed and the Twitter is unresponsive (and piped from Facebook).

I didn’t go to any of the ArtsFest events this weekend, busy, tired and didn’t have the energy for trying to hunt for the bits I’d enjoy. I did walk through it on Saturday at about three though, and it was rammed and people seemed to be enjoying it a lot (the weather no doubt helped bring out the crowds). Even stuffed rabbits had a good time. I think I’ve worked out why ArtsFest makes some people mad and uncomfortable with supporting it. Some is due to the supposed chaos behind the scenes, some to the haphazard promotion, but for me at least it’s the name. Some of what was on offer wasn’t “art” — some was craft, some was participatory science, some were information stalls about local charities or groups… some was Blues Brothers tribute acts (okay that’s just be being snobbish). All interesting, potentially popular, valuable to the community, but not art. Could we all get behind it more, feel more a part of it, if we weren’t told it was “art”? Couldn’t it be “Britain’s Biggest Community Festival”. Giving people a reason to feel proud, make it Brum people and orgs only, no parachuting in “headline...

There doesn’t seem to be an excuse to spend any time in your own house this week: On Wednesday you can have a drink with internet types at The Anchor, or pop along to The Edge and hack to your hearts content with the fizzPOPpers. On Friday, the Twitter mafia will be very upset if you don’t get to the Arcadian and “tweet up” (bleeding hell) at Twestival. It’s raising money for the YMCA, so expect more village people references than is healthy. The whole weekend is covered by ArtsFest — but we need recommendations for anything worth going to during that. If you’re not all classical fireworks fantasia’d out by Saturday evening, them you could do a lot worse than pop along to the Irish Centre where Rhubarb Radio are hosting an afterparty — will all the more danceable DJs as well as live acts fresh from ArtsFest.

ArtsFest – What to do?

I’ll no doubt do another long an rambling post on “what should be done” with ArtsFest (next weekend chappies) as a whole, but here I want you to collectively tell me what I should go see. You see, the problem with ArtsFest is that it’s BIG (the “biggest” – not the best – free arts festival in the UK) and not particularly structured — I think curated is the word we’re dancing round. It’s also mostly full of people doing their thang for nowt, so there aren’t many (any almost) names you will have heard of. So it’s impossible (especially on paper) to get a good idea of what’s worth seeing. But here’s my plan — the vast majority of artists are Brummies, so by the rules of networks someone here must know almost all of them (or know someone, who knows etc…). And let’s face it, we know when our mates are any good. Don’t expect you to say anyone you know personally isn’t worth seeing (if you can’t say anything nice), but if they are then tell us all here in the comments. The Big Paws is going to send studio dogsbody Dylan to report on what you tell...

Birmingham ArtsFest 2009

Matthew Somerville again does someone else's work for them and puts the ArtsFest Programme online in a a usable format. You can help too. There's also a scanned version of the paper programme.

Birmingham Photospace Artsfest Happenings

The Photospace team have loads of exciting ideas for Artsfest, coming soon indeed. To find out more (it's a bit lengthy to explain here) or offer your help, pop along to their blog:

Artfest 2009, pay to (erm) play

John Gargan, who exhibited at ArtsFest last year is shocked that artists are being asked to pay upfront to show their work this year: "During the weekend the buildings take on a new atmosphere inviting citizens in to chambers and hallowed rooms that very few would normally see and then its all over by 5pm on Sunday afternoon. Large crowds of people descend on the city and generally there’s that late summer sunshine outside to set the scene off just right. Additionally its great to network with other artists and compare notes. So why am I not going this September? Last night I began my application to apply for a space and I found that this year there is a payable fee for the stand of either £130 or £200 depending on the size of the space, in the past there has been a payable commission on sales, although I don’t think any of the artist achieved great sales. The council has decided that if they can get the commission fee up front this will guarantee the income."

ArtsFest, help us pick the highlights

I was intending to have a shufty through the ArtsFest programme and pick out a few highlights, recommend a few things, but it’s nigh on impossible. There’s so much on, of completely varying quality, ambition, scale, genre and medium (plus very few things that I’ve ever heard of). The programme (as a doccument) for this year is much better than last years A4+ monstrosity at a handy A5 – pocket sized and as clear as it can be – unfortunately the online version is harder to navigate. To try and help I‘ve scanned up a PDF for you to puruse until you get one of the printed ones. So I’ll only mention a few that I think might be of interest, you don’t want to hear my prejudices against Blues Brothers tribute bands, or worthy-but-not-interesting theatre groups: Of All The People In All The World – Stan’s Café’s top rice-based experience (although this is on through and after the weekend, so you can still go later on). You’ll be able to say “hello me old pal, me old beauty” to some of The Archers as they get their own paving slab in Broad St on Friday at 6pm, followed...

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