Whitechapel Gallery Summer Exhibitions
2010-07-21
Whitechapel Gallery Summer Exhibitions Listings
Alice Neel: Painted Truths - Until 17 September 2010
Alice Neel: Painted Truths is the first European retrospective dedicated to one of the most prominent American figurative painters of the 20th 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.
John Latham: Anarchive - Until 5 September 2010
The remarkable archive of British artist John Latham (1921–2006) is explored through this exhibition of his work and papers. Latham had a visionary outlook that questioned scientific thought. An important contributor to the Destruction in Art Symposium, 1966, and a founder member of the Artist Placement Group, 1966-89, he created performances, paintings, assemblages, sculptures and films. This apparently eclectic practice was united by his concept of Event Structures and Flat Time Theory. Through his experimental and radical work he linked science and art, proving influential in both fields.
The exhibition explores the fundamental concepts that shaped his art, also including material from Flat Time House, the artist’s residence and home to the John Latham Archive. A highlight of the exhibition are six rarely seen videos entitled Targets which were commissioned for Channel 4 in 1984 as part of the Dadarama series. These were designed as an intervention to the channel’s main programme and depict Latham’s theory through the combination of figurative and abstract sequences.
Artists in Residence: The School Looks Around -
10 June–2 August 2010
The School Looks Around was a visionary book aimed at mobilising young people to document British life at the time of huge social change following World War II. It became the inspiration for artists Amy Feneck and Olivia Plender during their year-long residencies in east London secondary schools. Presented are materials from the original publication, alongside the artists’ commissioned work. Feneck’s new film shot on 16mm interrogates the current values and ideals of education by observing the day-to-day activity of a state run secondary school. Plender investigated local green spaces with the students, interviewing a nun and the school gardener. A documentation of the survey process carried out by her and the young people is shown. She will use this material to create a new film to be screened later in the year.
Children’s Art Commission: Jake and Dinos Chapman 7 August–31 October 2010
Jake and Dinos Chapman transform the galleries into a space for children and families to delight in the macabre. Drawing on their forthcoming book Bedtime Tales for Sleepless Nights published by Fuel, the commission includes original etchings of modern-day fairy tales told in poetry and illustrated with intricate, fantastical drawings. A Whitechapel Gallery colouring book accompanies the commission along with drawing and poetry workshops for children run by the artists.
The Bloomberg Commission: Claire Barclay: Shadow Spans - until 2 May 2011
The Whitechapel Gallery presents a new site-specific artwork by leading artist Claire Barclay. Claire Barclay is a leading figure in a generation of young sculptors that have defined a re-engagement with materials and the process of making artwork. For her new installation, Shadow Spans, Barclay will create a large-scale installation in direct response to The Commissions Gallery. With its bare brick walls and concrete floor, Barclay has imagined it as a space turned outside in. The proximity to exterior spaces and the street is explored formally in Shadow Spans through the use of door and window like forms and a graphic interpretation of the brickwork that is repeated on fabric. From November, Shadow Spans will be animated throughout the year by a series of dance performances devised by innovative choreographers and dancers in response to her work such as the Siobhan Davies Company, Henrietta Hale, and Will Tucket from the Royal Ballet.
The D.Daskalopoulos Collection - Until 22 May 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 Marcel Duchamp, 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.
All exhibitions are free admission unless otherwise stated. Click here for more information
