Congratulations to architects Caruso St John, who have been awarded the 2016 Stirling Prize for Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London. The architects, now famed for their intuative museum and gallery designs won an international competition to build The New Art Gallery Wasall. We are very proud and priveledged to have been the architects first UK public gallery project, with our beautiful building standing the test of time, now 16 years old!
The new banner artwork has been specifically made for the Gallery’s Window Box as part of Eva Rothschild’s Alternative to Power exhibition which opens to the public from Saturday 24 September 2016 – 15 January 2017.
Eva Rothschild is one of the leading sculptors of her generation and has gained extensive international recognition for her work. She works across a range of media including steel, leather, resin, plastic and fabric and her work is often characterised by the use of unstable geometric forms. This will be Rothschild’s first solo exhibition in the Midlands and the new body of work will include a specially commissioned piece using leather, a material at the centre of Walsall’s manufacturing industry.
Eva Rothschild, Alternative to Power, 2016 Dyed Fabric
A new version of The New Art Gallery Walsall lift announcements, recently recorded by Noddy Holder when he visited the gallery back in May, is now back and delighting gallery visitors once more.
Noddy said during his gallery visit in May “It’s always a pleasure coming back to my home town, and I am always interested in what is going on at the New Art Gallery. Everyone should come and take a look, whether you are into art or not. There really is something for everybody, including the kids. You will of course also hear my dulcet tones guiding you in the lifts, what’s not to like!”
Noddy recorded the original lift announcements back in 2000 when the Gallery opened. As the Gallery has gradually evolved the original recording became outdated and as problems grew with the maintenance of certain equipment the recording had to be taken off the lift system a couple of years ago. However Noddy was never forgotten and the Gallery continued to receive many requests from members of the public to reinstate Noddy’s voice in the public lifts.
In 2014 the Gallery received a significant Capital grant from Arts Council England which has helped the Gallery replace and upgrade essential facilities throughout the building over a two year period. This has included major improvements to the Gallery’s public lifts, and with work recently completed it was an ideal opportunity to ask Noddy to record a new version of the announcements, and he was delighted to come back.