Whitechapel Gallery
Forthcoming exhibitions
Major Exhibitions
Where Three Dreams Cross:
150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
Galleries 1, 8 & 9, 21 January–11 April 2010
The Whitechapel Gallery presents the first major survey of historic and
contemporary photography from the subcontinent. This landmark exhibition
explores culture and modernity through the lens of photographers from India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh, with over 300 works by 70 artists. Images on show
range from the earliest days of photography in 1860 to the present day.
Seminal works from two of the most important collections of historic
photography, the Alkazi Collection in Delhi and the Drik Collection in
Bangladesh, join previously unseen images from private family archives and
works by leading contemporary artists such as Pushpamala and Dayanita Singh.
Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is
curated by Sunil Gupta, photographer, writer and curator; Shahidul Alam founder and Director of
Drik Archive and Pathshala, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Hammad Nasar, co-founder of the not-for-profit
arts organisation Green Cardamom, London, UK; Radhika Singh the founder of Fotomedia, Delhi’s
first photo library; and, Kirsty Ogg, curator, Whitechapel Gallery. A fully-illustrated catalogue
accompanies the exhibition. The exhibition will tour to Fotomuseum Winterthur, 11 June – 22
August 2010. Supported by: Andy Warhol Foundation, Columbia Foundation, Paul Hamlyn
Foundation.
Rachel Harrison: Consider the Lobster
Gallery 1, 30 April – 20 June 2010
One of the most compelling artists to emerge in the 1990s, the Whitechapel
Gallery presents the first major UK exhibition of works by Rachel Harrison. Born
in New York City in 1966, Harrison critically examines and plays with sculpture’s
fundamental properties, conventions, subjects and history. Object and pedestal,
picture and wall, painting and sculpture, as well as manufactured and
handmade objects, are all joined in her irregular handmade constructions. Her
work embodies a collision of popular culture with art-historical precedents, with
references from Pop Art to Minimalism. Harrison’s work reflects an incisive
relationship to consumer culture and the American psyche, propelled by a
critique of the clichés and hierarchies that influence and construct our desires,
expectations, social relations and values.
The exhibition is organised in collaboration with The Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS) at Bard
College, New York.
Robbrecht en Daem
Galleries 8 &9, 23 April – 20 June 2010
Established in 1975, Ghent-based architects Robbrecht en Daem (Paul
Robbrecht and Hilde Daem), who designed the recent expansion of the
Whitechapel Gallery, are guided by a poetic approach to building and
architecture. Their projects range from high profile public buildings such as
Bruges Concert Hall and the extension to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum,
Rotterdam, to a wood cabin, a zoo and a bird observation tower. Collaborations
with artists such Rene Heyvaert, Christina Iglesias and Franz West have created
subtle interplays between art and architecture, while their sensitive renovations
of existing buildings have revealed a sophisticated engagement with history.
This exhibition, their first in the UK, focuses on 30 projects ranging from the
1980s to today, including drawings, notational watercolours, plans and
photographs. Six films directed by choreographer and cinematographer Marteen
van den Abeele allow visitors a sensory experience of different building
typologies.
This exhibition is organised in collaboration with BOZAR, Brussels.
The D.Daskalopoulos Collection
Gallery 7, 10 June 2010 – 5 June 2011
As part of its ongoing programme of opening up important art collections to
the public the Gallery presents a series of four thematic exhibitions drawn from
one of the foremost European collections of contemporary art. Composed of
over 400 works by leading international artists including Matthew Barney, Louise
Bourgeois, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Damien Hirst, Martin Kippenberger,
Sherrie Levine, Paul McCarthy, Kiki Smith and Rosemarie Trockel, the backbone
of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection is formed by works from the past two
decades and reflects the ideas and aesthetic strategies of this period giving
particular prominence to large-scale installations and sculpture, as well as
drawing, collage, film and video. Carefully chosen works from earlier parts of
the 20th Century – by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Morris and Dieter
Roth - root the collection historically and add a further dimension to these
displays.
The Whitechapel Gallery’s programme of collection displays is supported by specialist insurer Hiscox.
Alice Neel: Painted Truths
Galleries 1, 8 & 9, 8 July – 17 September 2010
Alice Neel: Painted Truths is the first European retrospective dedicated to one of
the most prominent American figurative painters of the 20 th century. Alice Neel
(1900–1984) is best known for psychologically acute portraits that chronicle the
social and economic diversity of the artist’s work. A self-proclaimed ‘collector of
souls’, she often painted friends and family, as well as celebrated artists and
writers of her day, such as Andy Warhol, Frank O’Hara and Meyer Shapiro,
delving into their personalities and idiosyncrasies with rare frankness.
Undeterred by her turbulent personal life that included a year of hospitalisation
following a nervous breakdown, the destruction in 1934 of over two hundred
and fifty paintings and drawings, and little attention to her work until the 1960s,
Neel created uniquely compelling art. Bringing together over 60 of her most
important paintings on loan from international museum and private collections,
this exhibition spans nearly seven decades of her career.
This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Moderna
Museet Malmö.
Walid Raad
Galleries 1, 8 & 9, 3 October – 2 January 2011
US-based Lebanese artist Walid Raad, is one of the most original and significant
voices to emerge from and to engage with the current situation of the Middle
East. In an installation tailor-made for the Whitechapel’s galleries, this exhibition
for the first time brings together Raad’s landmark projects from the past two
decades: the documentary-style films and photographs produced under the
name of the fictitious collective The Atlas Group which take the civil wars in
Lebanon (1975–90) as their source of creative inspiration; and his ongoing
investigation into the lost tradition of modernity and the rapidly developing
infrastructure for contemporary art in the Gulf states in A History of Art in the
Arab World. Including new additions to both projects this survey offers the
opportunity to experience first-hand two bodies of work which have been
central to recent critical writing but not previously been shown on this scale.
Continuing Exhibitions
British Council Collection: Rhapsody on a Windy Night
19 December 2009 - 14 March 2010, Gallery 7
Artist Paula Rego selects works drawn from the British Council Collection.
Focusing on drawings, etchings, prints and works on paper, Rhapsody on a
Windy Night brings together over 60 works that span the 20th century. The
exhibition title is taken from a poem by TS Eliot, which describes a night time
landscape peopled by solitary women and nocturnal animals. Artists on show
include the Chapman Brothers, Prunella Clough, David Hockney, Gwen John,
Chris Ofili, Walter Sickert. This display marks the British Council’s 75 th
anniversary and is one of five displays presented over one year selected by
guest curators. The final display in Spring 2010 results from an international
competition open to curators worldwide.
Hiscox’s sponsorship of the Whitechapel Gallery’s presentation of great collections underlines its
commitment to promoting and protecting the very best in modern and contemporary art.
The Bloomberg Commission: Goshka Macuga
Until 3 May 2010
London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga’s new site specific artwork focuses
on a key moment in the history of the Whitechapel Gallery: the presentation of
Picasso’s Guernica in 1939. Forming the centrepiece is a life-size tapestry of
Guernica, commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller in 1955, and created, in
collaboration with Picasso. In 1985, the Rockefeller Estate lent the tapestry to
the United Nations Headquarters in New York, to offer a deterrent to war.
Supported by: Bloomberg