‘VERY DISCO’ & the launch of ‘Frantic Romantic’

For November’s Digbeth First Friday we had an evening of music performances from students from the Birmingham Conservatoire and the launch of a new exhibition in the second gallery by artist Simon Bayliss.

VERY DISCO: Frontiers at First Friday

Try to compose yourself as Eastside Projects becomes an echo chamber of the musically bizarre and the sonically surreal, beyond the confines of genre and style. That’s not to say this evening won’t be stylish though!

Pursue gallery codes in a concert hall or the concert hall codes in a gallery, the “nuisance value” of all codes, factors of urban or industrial life which constitute a health and environment hazard, but come unprepared and be uninitiated to this very disco code for one night only to dance to un-danceable music in the spirit of experimentation, exploration and discovery.

Simon Bayliss: ‘Frantic Romantic’

Since coming out as a landscape painter last year, Simon Bayliss has been pursuing outdoor painting as a mode of artistic enquiry. Bayliss lives in St Ives, Cornwall and works with the theme of queering anything deemed rural.  His relationship to the Cornish landscape and sea feature strongly in his work, juxtaposed with humorous erotically-charged imagery and text. His exhibition in the second gallery workshop featured recent paintings, ceramic ‘pasties’ and poetry. The exhibition coincided with SHOUT festival and continued until Friday 10 December.