Image: Installation view, 'Angela de la Cruz: Upright', Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Ikon Gallery in Birmingham is presenting 'Upright', a major exhibition of works by Angela de la Cruz, which opened on 25 March and runs through 6 September 2026. The show brings together rarely seen sculptures, installations and paintings, and includes a new commission developed in collaboration with Birmingham Royal Ballet. According to the gallery, the exhibition is guest curated by Carolina Grau and is shown free of charge in Ikon’s second-floor galleries.
The exhibition foregrounds de la Cruz’s long-running exploration of the body, collapse, support and endurance through works that sit between painting and sculpture. Ikon says her practice has spent more than three decades pushing against conventional categories, focusing on what happens when familiar structures — physical, emotional or architectural — strain or give way. The title 'Upright' points to that tension directly, suggesting standing, balance and the conditions needed to remain vertical.
Among the works identified by the gallery are 'Still Life with Table' (2000), a black canvas stretched over collapsed domestic objects; 'Limp (Brown)' (2000), a stretched painting held upright by another stitched-in canvas; and 'Bloated III (Blue)' (2012), a metal box hammered from the inside. Ikon describes these works as sculptural paintings that use objecthood, color and physical form to evoke adaptation and resilience while tracing the volume and limits of the artist’s body.
At the center of the exhibition is 'Transfer (White) with armchair' (2011), which Ikon connects to de la Cruz’s prolonged periods in hospital after her stroke in 2005. The gallery presents the work as a reflection on waiting, dependence and the embodied experience of being moved by others. Other works in the exhibition play with humor as well as fragility: 'Three Legged Chair on Stool' (2002) shows a chair deprived of one leg but still managing to stand, while 'Reach (Red & Black) Two Parts' (2002) uses stacked canvases to create an image of ascent and pressure.
The new commission at the core of 'Upright' stems from de la Cruz’s time, beginning in October 2025, spent with dancers from Birmingham Royal Ballet while observing rehearsals for Sir Peter Wright’s production of 'The Nutcracker'. Ikon says the work draws parallels between the broken nutcracker doll, the dancers’ ability to convey fragility and strength, and the artist’s own method of binding materials into durable forms. A separate response by Birmingham Royal Ballet artist Olivia Chang Clarke will also be presented during the exhibition.
Ikon notes that several works in 'Upright' have not been seen for more than 20 years. One of them is 'Upright Piano' (1999), a sculpture in which de la Cruz joined and restrung a piano with part of another to create an instrument that can be played at standing height. The gallery says the piece will be restored and activated by professional musicians during the run of the exhibition. Born in La Coruña and based in London, de la Cruz was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010, and Ikon describes 'Upright' as her first solo exhibition in the UK outside London.
