Under the direction of Simon Chapman (who had previously run the Birmingham Arts Lab) assisted by Jeanette Koch, the gallery embarked on an ambitious expansion of broadening the exhibition programme to include the works of nationally and internationally recognised artists, and to move to a busier location in order to gain greater interest from a wider public.

The number of visitors to the gallery rocketed into the hundreds and on occasions peaked at over a thousand a day providing many with their first opportunity of seeing modern and contemporary art by living artists.

The opening show of large chalk on blackboard wall drawings by John Walker firmly established Birmingham as a city with a gallery devoted to the contemporary visual arts.

Notable group shows included Midland Art Now featuring the work of 20 of the most prominent Midlands based artists including Roy Abell, Barrie Cook, John Farrington, Dick French, William Gear, Colin Hitchmough, John Melville, David Prentice and Peter Tarrant, and which was accompanied by a full colour printed broadsheet catalogue distributed free to the 40,000 readers of the Birmingham Post.

Beyond Destination, a show curated by Ian Iqbal Rashid and featuring contemporary South Asian artists including Sutapa Biswas and Alia Syed went on to tour internationally.

[8] The gallery moved to its current site, the former Oozells Street Board School, in 1997 with the cost of the conversion partly funded by a grant from the National Lottery.

[10] It was housed in a Victorian former chapel and Sunday school, with the words "Stay away from Lonely Places" prominently displayed on the façade - an artwork by Canadian artist Ron Terada.

[15] [16] Solo exhibitions since 2000 include Santiago Sierra,[17] On Kawara,[18] Roy Arden,[19] Marcel Dzama,[20] Olafur Eliasson,[21] Simon Patterson,[22] Richard Billingham,[23] Julian Opie,[24] Cornelia Parker,[25] and Haroon Mirza (November 2018 — February 2019) [26]