Birmingham, a city famous for diversity and home to one of the largest Pride events in the country. This makes it the perfect place to house the Coming Out exhibition. Situated in the heart of the city, at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, this interactive and educational exhibition celebrates 50 years since the decriminalisation of Homosexuality.
Our contributor Nathan visited the exhibition with our team member Sparkles right before they were going to see Joe Black’s show. Here’s his review of the exhibition and why he thinks it’s definitely worth a visit.
Displaying art work and films from some huge names in the art world like David Hockney and Tracy Emmin (just to name a few), this incredible exhibition sets out to educate the visitor about the hardships our homosexual pioneers had to face but also to celebrate the massive way we have come in these past decades. It is scary to think that just 50 years ago, homosexual men and women were being arrested or even imprisoned just for being gay.
We visited relatively early on Saturday morning, but there was still quite a lot of people walking around. It was refreshing to see families with small children taking in the beautiful exhibition.
The space was very easy to navigate and there was no chance of missing out on any of the artwork. Every piece was clearly labelled with some additional information. Visitors could clearly see how much work had been put into the display itself as well as in the decision in regards to what work to include.
One of our favorite pieces in the exhibition was Anya Calloccio’s “Can love remember the question and the answer?“. This amazing artwork consists of a Mahogany door with glas insets that had sixty real flowers between the window panes. Those flowers will decay over the course of the exhibition and serve as a living reminder of how brief life and beauty can be.
We also enjoyed Grayson Perry’s “Claire’s Coming Out Dress”, which celebrates the freedom to express yourself as you wish.
Not only did the whole experience leave the visitor feeling educated, it also made us think about what we could do to help further the cause and to learn more about what came before us.
After looking at all these amazing artworks, visitors also get to get “crafty”. In a designated area, there are workshops being held.
It’s definitely something I want to visit again before the exhibition closes next month and would highly recommend everyone to visit.
Although this is a free exhibition, please donate to to this beautiful museum, so they can carry on bringing incredible exhibitions such as this one to this stunning city.
The exhibition is open until the 15th of April. For more information, click here.
