A Real Birmingham Family
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''A Real Birmingham Family'' is a
public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...
work and sculpture by
Gillian Wearing Gillian Wearing CBE, RA (born 10 December 1963) is an English conceptual artist, one of the Young British Artists, and winner of the 1997 Turner Prize. In 2007 Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. H ...
, cast in
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
, and erected in
Centenary Square Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The square is used as a staging area for many of the city's main cul ...
, outside the
Library of Birmingham The Library of Birmingham is a public library in Birmingham, England. It is situated on the west side of the city centre at Centenary Square, beside the Birmingham Rep (to which it connects, and with which it shares some facilities) and Baske ...
, England, on 30 October 2014. It depicts two local sisters, each single mothers called Roma and Emma Jones, with their two children; Roma's son Kyan and Emma's son Shaye. Emma is depicted as pregnant with a second son, Isaac, who was born before the sculpture was unveiled. A small plaque laid on the ground in front of the work describes it. In a process begun in 2011, and coordinated by the city's
Ikon Gallery The Ikon Gallery () is an England, English art gallery, gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Listed building, Grade II listed, neo-Gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henr ...
, nominations for a "real" local family to model for the sculpture were invited. The Joneses were selected from a shortlist, by an independent panel, in August 2013. Wearing said: The £100,000 cost of the work was covered by a combination of public money and private donations. The casting was carried out in China. The project follows Wearing's 2008 work, ''A Typical Trentino Family''. In November 2014 shortly after being unveiled, New Fathers 4 Justice activist Bobby Smith covered the statue with a white sheet and pictures of his two daughters. Smith commented, "They’ve depicted the normal family with no fathers... I believe kids are always better off with both parents in their lives." The statue went into storage in May 2017, to allow work for the redevelopment of Centenary Square to begin.


See also

*
2014 in art The year 2014 in art involved various significant events. Events * A series of annual editathons entitled art + Feminism commences. Held by members of the Wikipedia community, they are undertaken in order to try to level off a gender disparity ga ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Real Birmingham Family 2014 establishments in England 2014 sculptures Bronze sculptures in England Centenary Square, Birmingham Outdoor sculptures in Birmingham, West Midlands Sculptures of women in England Statues in England Sculptures by Gillian Wearing Sculptures of children in England