essays by Claire Doherty, Michael Prior, Deborah Kermode

artists include Merry Alpern, Guy Bar-Amotz, Margaret Barron, Tim Brennan, John Carson, Nathan Coley, Jeffrey Dennis, Kane Do, Fischli and Weiss, Kenneth Goldsmith, Joanna Griffin, Frances Hegarty and Andrew Stones, Pierre Huyghe, Tadashi Kawamata, Tracy Mackenna and Edwin Janssen, Colin Pearce, Paul Noble, Navin Rawanchaikul, Scanner, George Shaw, Shimabuku, Angel Vergara, Luca Vitone, Richard Wentworth

As It Is documents an unprecedented season of new contemporary art on show both in and outside the Ikon Gallery, investigating the nature of urban space ‘as it is’ for inhabitants. It involves a diverse range of work – from a new lottery game to a portable karaoke project, from cooking on a canal boat to comic books in taxi cabs. Video, photography, installation, painting, sound and performance have been commissioned by the Ikon Gallery and most of the artists have taken the city of Birmingham as their inspiration.