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The Car that Ate Bournville
Author: Simon Sellars • Apr 30th, 2008 •Category: Ballardosphere, David Cronenberg, suburbia, urban revolt, urban ruins, visual art
Above: the offending vehicle.
The Zodiac 3000 exhibition in Birmingham, dedicated to and inspired by Ballard, has already drawn first blood, severely disrupting the stasis of surrounding Brum suburbia. As my snout, Tim C., notes, “in a minor mirroring of the moral outrage occasioned by Ballard’s 1970 Arts Lab exhibition, the Birmingham Mail is on the case”:
THIS clapped-out car may look ready for the breakers’ yard, but angry Birmingham families have been told it is “art”. Fuming residents at Maple Road, Bournville, today blasted art centre bosses for allowing the “eyesore” to be left yards from their homes.
The Mercedes is on display outside Bournville Centre for Visual Arts as part of a month-long exhibition devoted to the work of British author JG Ballard, who wrote the controversial novel Crash.
Residents said it lowered the tone of George Cadbury’s model village. Cadbury worker Robert Potter, aged 59, said: “It’s an eyesore. This is a nice area, and we are trying to keep up standards. It would be towed away if it was parked on the street.”
Crash, published in 1973, features characters who become sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. It was later filmed by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
Art exhibition curator Andrew Hunt said: “Art is meant to be provocative. “Ballard is fixated with white, middle-class suburbs, which Bournville is. It’s holding a mirror to the idea of white ghettoes and the ideology behind them.
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Art centre in row over porn
May 2 2008 By James Cartledge
A BIRMINGHAM art centre was at the centre of a fresh row today after bosses were accused of displaying hard-core pornography.
Coun Nigel Dawkins said he was “disturbed” by some of the images in the Zodiac 3000 project at Bournville Centre for Visual Arts.
The centre has already infuriated nearby residents by putting a wrecked Mercedes on show outside as part of the month-long project, devoted to the work of author JG Ballard.
Now bosses at the Birmingham City University-run site have agreed to put up bigger warning signs about the nature of the exhibition.
“The exhibition disturbed me as within it are pictures which are heavily pornographic,” Coun Dawkins said.
“There’s very little indication at the entrance of what the exhibition contains. The images shouldn’t be there.
“Teenagers of 16 and 17 go to that college.
“I don’t want to wrap them in cotton wool but there should be explicit signs. I have told the authorities that and, hopefully, it will be rectified.”
The images at the centre of the row show people in a variety of sexual positions and include heterosexual and gay poses.
A university spokesman said the centre would bow to Coun Dawkins’ wishes about warning signs for the exhibition.
“A notice is on plain display at the entrance to the exhibition which makes clear the adult nature of the material within,” he said.
“We also use an invigilation procedure so any adults attempting to bring young people into the exhibition are made fully aware of its contents. No unsupervised children are allowed into the exhibition.
“The university believes adults have the right to choose the type of material they view. We do not assume to make that choice for them.
“Birmingham City University is also keen to reflect the view of the community, of which we are a part.
“As a result, we will be increasing the number and size of advisory notices at the entrance to the exhibition.”
* The ruined Mercedes outside the centre relates to Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash, about characters who become sexually aroused by staging car crashes.