Victoria Square to be transformed as 200,000 people head to Birmingham
Artwork and photography chronicling the story of Black Sabbath is set to appear in one of Birmingham's most prominent city squares ahead of Ozzy Osbourne's final gig at Villa Park Stadium.
Central BID has announced that the free outdoor exhibition will feature archive images of Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler and will open on Wednesday, June 25.
As well as the snaps, it'll be an opportunity to tell the story of the band's Aston roots, with facts featuring throughout to help teach visitors of the band's legacy.
Read more: Huge Ozzy Osbourne exhibition in Birmingham as Sharon says 'we had to bring it home'
Read more: All the Birmingham places heavy metal fans need to visit during Black Sabbath weekend
Black Sabbath are revered as being the creators of the heavy metal genre and their history dates back more than 50 years.
Their upcoming reunion show will take place on Saturday, July 5 at Villa Park Stadium and the show, titled Back To The Beginning, will be live streamed around the world after live tickets sold out in less than 16 minutes.
Fans are expected to visit the city in their thousands, with four other huge events taking place on the same weekend taking the expected influx to over 200,000 people.
Central BID has confirmed that the outdoor exhibition will run throughout the summer with a closing date yet to be announced.
It's the third free celebration of Black Sabbath that Central BID has announced in the last two weeks.
As well as the photography display, it is also working with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) and Sharon Osbourne Management to create an indoor exhibition at the museum.
Titled Working Class Hero, it will feature some of Ozzy's most impressive accolades, including his Grammy Awards and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame memorabilia.
Central BID has also commissioned Mr Murals, a spray artist, to transform a stretch of wall on Navigation Street into a 40m-long Black Sabbath mural, featuring their logo and photorealistic portraits from the last seven decades.
Sam Watson, chair of Central BID Birmingham, said: "Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath helped shape modern music and put Birmingham on the global cultural map.
"These exhibitions are a celebration of our city's creativity, heritage and influence – and a chance for fans to walk in the footsteps of legends."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Beloved Singer, 37, Makes Final Public Appearance Before Serious Cancer Treatments
Beloved Singer, 37, Makes Final Public Appearance Before Serious Cancer Treatments originally appeared on Parade. A talented singer-songwriter with a young son revealed in an Instagram video earlier this month that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo a double mastectomy later this year. Jessie J, 37 (real name Jessica Ellen Cornish), walked the red carpet for the Capital Summertime Ball 2025 at Wembley Stadium on June 15, in London, England. The annual Summertime Ball is put on by the U.K. radio station Capital. It is a mini musical festival that takes place on either the first or second Saturday or Sunday in June, depending on the year. In addition to Jessie J, the lineup for 2025 included Mariah Carey, Will Smith & DJ Jazzy Jeff, Benson Boone, Dasha, Rita Ora and more. When the British Grammy-nominated singer revealed her cancer diagnosis, she had said that Summertime Ball would be her last hurrah before undergoing her cancer treatment and June 3, Jessie J revealed in a candid, emotional video that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. In her usual cheeky way, she was making light of her situation, but became quite emotional when talking about other people going through what she is currently going through. "I was diagnosed with early breast cancer. I'm highlighting the word early. Cancer sucks in any form, but I'm holding on to the word 'early.' I have been in and out of tests throughout this whole period. I just wanted to be open and share it, 1) because selfishly, I do not talk about it enough. I'm not processing it because I'm working so hard. I also know how much sharing in the past has helped me with other people giving me their love and support, and also their own stories. I'm an open book. It breaks my heart that so many people are going through so much, similar and worse. Um, that's the bit that kills me," said the singer. "I'm getting to keep my nipples. That's good. It's a weird topic and a weird situation," said Jessie, adding, "It's a very dramatic way to get a boob job. I am going to disappear for a bit after Summertime Ball to have my surgery. And I will come back with massive tits and more music." Jessie J has a young son named Sky, who just turned 2 in May. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Beloved Singer, 37, Makes Final Public Appearance Before Serious Cancer Treatments first appeared on Parade on Jun 15, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 15, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Royal Fans "Feel Sorry" for Prince Louis After He's Told Off by Kate Middleton and Prince George for Two Very Different Reasons
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Prince Louis appeared to be having a ball at Trooping the Colour on June 14, 2025. The little royal was photographed laughing alongside his brother, Prince George, as the pair traveled by carriage to the event with mom Kate Middleton, who twinned with Princess Charlotte for the occasion. However, royal fans expressed concern after spotting Prince Louis getting scolded by both Kate and George when the Royal Family stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the RAF flypast. One photo of the Prince and Princess of Wales's children showed Prince George placing an arm on his little brother, which seemed to be a warning gesture in an attempt to stop Louis waving at the crowds. Commenting on the moment, one person wrote on Reddit, "Louis figured out the crowd would cheer every time he waved and then George put a stop to it." Another commenter explained, "I've done this a time or two to my brother. He ignored me and did his thing." Another eye-catching photo appeared to show Princess Kate glaring at Prince Louis and saying something to the young royal. Speaking to the Mirror, lip reader Jeremy Freeman suggested that Kate told her youngest son, "National anthem. Louis, stand." Prince Louis appeared to heed his mother's warning, although it's unclear if there was anything else involved in the seemingly tense interaction. "I feel sorry for the kids having their every move analyzed," one commenter wrote on Reddit. "They all seem to have their hands full with little Louis," one commentator wrote on Reddit. Another person joked, "As the mother of 3 kids, nothing is more relatable than this little mini drama." One person who didn't seem to mind Prince Louis's "cheeky" behavior was King Charles. In photos of the pair, Charles could be seen giggling while his grandson made exaggerated gestures. "Louis turned to look at his grandfather waving and quickly mimicked the gesture as other members of the family grinned and joined in," per GB News. "In a cheeky gesture, Louis stole one last wave just as he was ushered out of view by his mother."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Edward Burra - Ithell Colquhoun: Tate's double-bill is a revelation
Tate Britain's latest offer? Two exhibitions for the price of one. For the first time since 2013's Gary Hume-Patrick Caulfield double-header, separate yet similarly engrossing shows occupy the lower-floor galleries at Millbank, accessed with a single ticket. (The order in which you see them is unimportant, but some stamina is required; allow a couple of hours.) The juxtaposition isn't obvious but neither is it forced: although it's unlikely they ever met, the 20th-century British artists Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun were born only a year apart, to upper-middle-class families, and were both associated with Surrealism. They also shared preoccupations, such as an interest in same-sex relationships and a concern for the British landscape – as well as (to varying degrees) the paranormal and the occult. A ramshackle, sickly character from Sussex, Burra (1905-76) specialised in stylised, graphic watercolours with a satirical edge, often depicting people on society's margins. (For the artist Paul Nash, a friend, he was a modern Hogarth.) In part because watercolour was his preferred medium – thanks to lifelong rheumatoid arthritis and anaemia, he found it easier than painting in oils at an easel – he's often considered an idiosyncratic, tangential figure within British visitors to Tate Britain may be familiar with his composition The Snack Bar (1930), in which a chalky-faced barman suggestively slices a firm, pink ham (it remains on display upstairs), but this show of more than 80 paintings – Burra's first London retrospective in 40 years – contains so many exhibits from private collections (almost 50) that it feels like a revelation. Accompanied by music drawn from his collection of 78rpm gramophone records (he was a big fan of American jazz, which inspired a trip to Harlem during the 1930s), the exhibition tautly traces Burra's career, from his teeming early pictures of bohemians and pert-bottomed sailors living it up in France – Le Bal (1928) is a standout – to his brooding post-war visions of an enchanted British countryside blighted by motorways and concrete. Each picture is a mini-world of incident and observation, often saturated with seediness and innuendo. The conflicts of the 1930s and 1940s cut Burra deeply, darkening an already dour disposition, and inspiring in his work a menacing new strain (sometimes charged with sadomasochism), as the flirting, gurning hedonists of his earlier paintings are replaced by hooded wraiths and sinister men in birdlike masks. Colquhoun (1906-88), an avowed occultist, was more interested in magic and the power of female sexuality than in macho menace; whereas Burra fetishised the male form, Colquhoun – who may have been bisexual, and was married only briefly, during the 1940s – painted imagery evoking impotence and castration. Who knew that a trimmed cucumber could be so troubling?This show, first seen earlier this year (at Tate St Ives) in Cornwall, where Colquhoun lived during her latter decades, takes her obsession with magic seriously – devoting space to diagrams of tesseracts and tarot-card designs, and teasing out impenetrable alchemical concepts such as the 'Divine Androgyne'.Don't let this put you off. Inspired by the crisp art of Salvador Dalí, which she encountered in London in 1936 (at an exhibition of Surrealist art in which Burra also participated), Colquhoun's mature paintings – often produced using 'automatic' techniques – have a flaming, dream-like intensity. In Dance of the Nine Opals (1942), a ring of opalescent rocks inspired by a Cornish stone circle appears to revolve around a golden tree of life before pink-tinged mountains. Fantastical pictures like this – like much of Burra's original output (which, although the shows aren't in competition, probably edges it) – deserve greater prominence in the history of 20th-century British art. From June 13;
