Press release:

At noon on the 13 March, Bill Drummond will arrive into Birmingham via the Grand Union Canal on his raft made from his bed. He will moor up the raft under Spaghetti Junction. With him he will have four hundred and forty bunches of daffodils and four hundred empty jam jars.

Drummond will then construct his sculpture 400 BUNCHES OF DAFFODILS under Spaghetti Junction and leave it there.

Drummond will then walk to the Birmingham Town Hall with the remaining forty bunches of daffodils. On arriving at the steps of the Town Hall he will give away the forty bunches of daffodils to forty complete strangers. This will mark the beginning of his twelve-year World Tour.

For the following three months (14 March – 14 June) Drummond will be working across the city on many of the jobs that are part of his ongoing practice. The centre of his operations will be Eastside Projects, a public art gallery in the Digbeth area of the city.
The 25 Paintings alluded to in this title will also be exhibited within Eastside Projects.

The 25 Paintings are large simple text paintings.
The 25 Paintings act as markers, signposts or advertisements for Drummond’s ongoing practice. The 25 Paintings are regularly over-painted when new markers, signposts or advertisements are required.
Drummond first began work on The 25 Paintings in 2001 and will not be finished until 2025 at the end of the World Tour.
The 25 Paintings also have a double life on the walls of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Alongside The 25 Paintings, Eastside Projects will exhibit The 60 Posters, The 25 Second Films, an evolving selection of photographs, a globe of the world and a large map of Birmingham.

To coincide with the beginning of the World Tour, Drummond is publishing three books: MAN MAKES BED, MAN SHINES SHOES and the catalogue for the exhibition THE 25 PAINTINGS: 2014.

He will also be giving three performance lectures at Eastside Projects. Their titles are Art Versus Money, Painting Versus Sculpture and Life Versus Death (times and dates to be confirmed).

A full programme of Drummond’s work in Birmingham is available by visiting his website

The next four cities on the World Tour are: Berlin, Germany: 2015
Guangzhou, China: 2016
Memphis, Tennessee: 2017

Kolkata, India: 2018

The World Tour will conclude underneath Spaghetti Junction on the evening of the 28 April 2025 if Drummond does not die beforehand.

Venue information: Eastside Projects. 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR, UK. Tel. 0121 771 1778. Free entry, open Wednesday to Saturday, 12–5pm.