Whitechapel Gallery

Whitechapel Gallery

Location within Central London
Established	1901
Location	77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, UK.
Visitors	490,000 (April 2009-April 2010)
Director	Iwona Blazwick
Public transit access	Aldgate East
Website	www.whitechapelgallery.org

The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it also has a strong track record for education and outreach projects, now focused on the Whitechapel area's deprived populations. It exhibits the work of contemporary artists, as well as organising retrospective exhibitions and shows that are of interest to the local community.

The Gallery exhibited Pablo Picasso's Guernica in 1938 as part of a touring exhibition organised by Roland Penrose to protest the Spanish Civil War. For the history of post-war British art, the most important exhibition to have been held at the Whitechapel Gallery was This is Tomorrow in 1956. Initiated by members of the Independent Group, the exhibition brought Pop Art to the general public as well as introducing some of the artists, concepts, designers and photographers that would define the Swinging Sixties.

Throughout its history, the Whitechapel Gallery had a series of open exhibitions that were a strong feature for the area's artist community, but by the early 1990s these open shows became less relevant as emerging artists moved to other areas.

In the later 1960s and through the 1970s, the critical importance of the Whitechapel Gallery was displaced by newer venues such as the Hayward Gallery, but in the 1980s the Gallery enjoyed a resurgence under the Directorship of Nicholas Serota. The Whitechapel Gallery had a major refurbishment in 1986 and has recently completed (April 2009) a two year programme of work to incorporate the former Passmore Edwards Library building next door, vacated when Whitechapel Idea Store opened, which has doubled the physical size of the Gallery and nearly tripled available exhibition space, and which will now allow the Whitechapel Gallery to remain open to the public year round.

History

The Whitechapel has premiered international artists such as Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Nan Goldin, and provided a showcase for Britain’s most significant artists from Gilbert & George to Lucian Freud, Peter Doig, Ian McKeever, to Mark Wallinger. The Gallery plays a unique role in London's cultural landscape and is pivotal to the continued growth of east London as one of the world’s most vibrant contemporary art quarters.

The Whitechapel Gallery’s history is a history of firsts:

1939 - Guernica, Picasso’s iconic depiction of the horrors of the Spanish civil war, is displayed at the Whitechapel on its first and only visit to Britain

1956 - This is Tomorrow exhibit

1958 - The first major show in Britain of seminal American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock

1961 - British premiere of Mark Rothko.The installation of his work at the Whitechapel becomes his template for all subsequent shows

1970 and 1971 - First major David Hockney retrospective, first major shows of Gilbert & George and Richard Long

1982 - The Whitechapel Gallery introduces little-known Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo to London audiences

1993 - The Whitechapel Gallery showcases Lucian Freud, one of Britain’s greatest living figurative painters

2001 and 2002 - Liam Gillick and Nan Goldin stage their first major solo shows in the UK

The Whitechapel Gallery has also curated groundbreaking group exhibitions, ranging from the proto-pop art show "This is Tomorrow" of 1956 to the revisioning of modernism in the 2004 blockbuster, "Faces in the Crowd".

On 13 February 2008 a new exhibition by Cornelia Parker opened at the Whitechapel Gallery, organised in partnership with Friends of the Earth [1]. Parker’s latest work is a 40 minute film - Chomskian Abstract, 2007, produced by Ikon Gallery and the Sharjah Biennial - presenting her interview with the world-renowned writer and theorist Noam Chomsky. By answering Parker’s questions, Chomsky addresses the failings of government, corporations, institutions and the media to take responsibility for the ecological safety of our planet. He urges us to take responsibility, change our lifestyles and bring about socio-economic change.

In addition to Chomskian Abstract, 2007, Parker’s Poison and Antidote Drawings, 2004 [2] are on show, featuring black ink containing snake venom and white ink containing anti-venom. The format of the drawings reflects the question and answer format of the interview with Chomsky. The exhibition ended 30 March 2008.

Education

Since 1923 art has been presented alongside education. A not-for-profit educational charity, the Whitechapel has pioneered artists’ residencies in schools and other education innovations that have been adopted as models across the UK and internationally.

Expansion

Rodney Graham's Weathervane (2008) was commissioned for the new expansion

The Whitechapel was reopened on 4 April 2009 after an two-year project which approximately doubled the size of the Gallery by incorporating the former neighbouring library building. The work cost approximately £13.5m and was partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. A tapestry based on Pablo Picasso's Guernica, loaned by the United Nations, is to be included in the inaugural exhibition by Goshka Macuga. and Isa Genzken.

As part of the expansion, a new Archive Gallery, a reading room and an archive repository (where the Whitechapel’s historic records will be held) have been created. These developments are in keeping with the Whitechapel's standing as an educational charity, as a great deal more of the Gallery's historical archive and book collection will be available to the public for research purposes. Previously the archives were so small that they were only able to hold two readers at a time, and were only available by appointment once a week. The archives catalogue the very conception of the gallery, as well as the complete directors' files of correspondence which reveal the reasons behind key decisions in the Gallery's history.

Galleries

Gallery 1, 8 & 9

Temporary Exhibitions

Gallery 2

Commissions

Gallery 7

Collections Gallery

Gallery 4

The Archive

Gallery 3

Limited Editions

Gallery 5 & 6

Education Project spaces

Zilkha Auditorium

Video Art

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  Gallery 1
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  Gallery 2
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  Caption3
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  Gallery 4
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Directors

• Charles Aitken (1901–1911)
• Bryan Robertson (1952–1968)
• Jasia Reichardt (1974–1976)
• Nicholas Serota (1976–1988)
• Catherine Lampert (1988–2002)
• Iwona Blazwick (2002– )

Board of Trustees

Chairman

• Robert Taylor

Trustees

• Duncan Ackery
• Ed Eisler
• Ann Gallagher
• Runa Islam
• Michael Keith
• Keir McGuinness
• Farshid Moussavi
• Dominic Palfreyman
• Atul Patel
• Catherine Petitgas
• Alice Rawsthorn
• Andrea Rose OBE
• Sukhdev Sandhu
• Nitin Sawhney
• Rohan Silva
• Alasdhair Willis

Transport

The Gallery's main entrance

The nearest tube stations are Aldgate East and Aldgate tube station

• Aldgate East tube station entrance
  Aldgate East tube station entrance
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  Aldgate tube station entrance

External links

• Whitechapel Gallery Gallery website
• Greg Whitfield, Review of Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller and Philip DiCorcia show at Whitechapel Art Gallery (June–August 2003), 3:am Magazine. Includes a good photograph of the Gallery interior.