Whitechapel Gallery

18/02/2025

"I believe love should definitely be playful and healing through the child-like behaviours that emerge from vulnerability and the safety to reveal oneself." – Puer Deorum.

This weekend, Whitechapel Gallery presents ‘arms blue, knees bare’, a two-day display by artist Puer Deorum in collaboration with Oitij-jo.

This will be activated by two live performances of ‘hold me while my mind falters’, on Sat, 22nd Feb, at 2:30 pm & 4:30 pm.

Head to our website to read an interview with Puer, https://ow.ly/1Eeo50V29Ca




Image. India Bharadwaj

17/02/2025

Lubaina Himid on Donald Rodney!

Lubaina Himid and Donald Rodney were part of the Blk Art Group, a collective of young Black artists, critics, and curators founded in Wolverhampton in 1982 to address race and identity. The group’s members, primarily children of Caribbean migrants, grew up in the industrial West Midlands.

Artists linked to the group include Eddie Chambers, Dominic Dawes, Claudette Johnson, Wenda Leslie, Ian Palmer, Keith Piper, Marlene Smith, and others. Many later played key roles in the British Black Arts Movement.

Read more from Lubaina Himid in ‘Donald Rodney: A Reader’, now available to buy online.

13/02/2025

Celebrate Galentine's with us at Whitechapel Lates

Join us tonight at 6-9pm and enjoy free entry to our newly opened exhibitions ‘Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker’ and ‘Moving Grounds’.

We also have a newly opened common room where you can relax, hang out and enjoy the vibes. We’d love to see you there.




Image. Anne Tetzlaff

12/02/2025

Our Spring Season is now OPEN!

Featuring two exhibitions that continue our aim to give space and time to artists, groups and perspectives too often overlooked, subdued or marginalised.

📺 ‘Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker’ offers an extensive survey of the artist’s deeply personal and political works, addressing themes of blackness, masculinity, colonial history, and the experience of living with sickle cell anaemia as a metaphor for societal ills.

👫‘Moving Grounds’ celebrates the creative legacy of Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective, Duchamp & Sons, with a collaborative series that amplifies young people’s voices in art.

Visit our website to book your tickets now. Members go free. https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/





Image.
Donald Rodney, Self Portrait: Black Men Public Enemy, 1990. Lightboxes with Duratrans prints 190.5 × 121.9 cm Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London Image © The Donald Rodney Estate
Anne Tetzlaff

11/02/2025

free.

Following acclaimed presentations at Spike Island and Nottingham Contemporary, Whitechapel Gallery brings the major survey exhibition of the late British multi-media artist Donald Rodney to London.

Book your tickets now to this highly celebrated exhibition, via https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/donald-rodney/




Image: Donald Rodney, John Barnes(1991) and Mexico Olympics (1991). Duratrans prints on aluminium framed lightboxes with fluorescent tubelights. Each: 107 × 81 × 17 cm. The British Council Collection. Installation view: Spike Island, Bristol / Photo: Lisa Whiting

05/02/2025

🔎 Sneak peek of ‘Moving Grounds: 15 Years of Duchamp and Sons’, opening today!!

Curated by the collective’s current members, in collaboration with artist Holly Graham, this exhibition is a vibrant exploration of the Duchamp & Sons archive, documenting creative resilience in the face of mounting challenges to arts education and funding.

Founded in 2010, Duchamp & Sons brings together young people aged 15–24 from in and around East London to collaborate with each other and guest artists on creative projects. Over the last 15 years, the collective has cultivated a supportive and joyful space for members to amplify their critical and creative voice, and to discover more about possible pathways in visual art.

Find out more, via https://ow.ly/BZwr50UUeIT

03/02/2025

‘I suppose I am always trying to find something. I’m always looking for it. This has gone on since I was fourteen – and now I’m eighty five.’ - Gillian Ayres, 2015.

Today, we celebrate the life of Gillian Ayres, who was born in 1930.

Ayres (1930-2018) was one of Britain’s leading artists and had been at the forefront of abstract painting since the 1950s. She is best known for her abstract paintings and printmaking, distinguished by vibrant colors that earned her a Turner Prize nomination in 1987.

In 2023, Whitechapel Gallery showcased Gillian Ayres in ‘Action, Gesture, Paint’, an exhibition that celebrated the practices of numerous women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Did you visit this exhibition?




Image: Gillian Ayres, Distillation, 1957. Oil and house paint on board 213.4 x 152.4. Photo: © Tate.

01/02/2025

Accompanying ‘Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker’ is the free screening programme ‘Home as Sanctuary, Body in a State of Siege’

This ilm programme is a 90-minute selection of films by contemporary artists exploring themes in Rodney’s work, including race, gender and disability, through modern technologies.

Curated by Richard Birkett, author of ‘Donald Rodney: Autoicon’ (Afterall, 2023), the programme features Hannah Black, Carolyn Lazard, and Shahryar Nashat.

Spring Season at Whitechapel Gallery opens on 12 Feb.

Find out more, via




Image: Hannah Black, The Neck, 2014. HD colour video with sound, 3 Minutes 28 Seconds. Courtesy of the artist.

31/01/2025

This spring, ‘Moving Grounds: 15 Years of Duchamp & Sons’ celebrates the creative legacy of Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective.

Founded in 2010, Duchamp & Sons brings together young people aged 15–24 from East London to collaborate with contemporary artists, providing a vital space to amplify their voices and engage with the arts.

Curated by current members, in collaboration with artist Holly Graham, the exhibition explores the Duchamp & Sons archive, and with it a generation of artistic experimentation during a period of unprecedented pressure on arts education, funding, and young people.

Join us in celebrating this group exhibition, opening 5 Feb.


&Sons

29/01/2025

“My work is an insight into the fears, the desires,
the realities and anger of the black experience,
past, present and future. I create it from the
standpoint of being black, and for that I cannot
and will not apologise.” - Donald Rodney.

Whitechapel Gallery brings this major survey exhibition of the late British multi-media artist Donald Rodney to London - following acclaimed presentations at both Spike Island (Bristol) and Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham).

Opening on 12 Feb, ‘Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker’, showcases the extraordinary breadth and influence of Rodney’s work, confirming him as a vital figure in British art, and introducing him to a new generation of audiences.

Pre-book your tickets today https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/donald-rodney/


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Image.Donald Rodney, In the House of My Father, 1997, Photograph, 123 × 153 cm, Image © The Donald Rodney Estate.

Whitechapel Gallery brings this major survey exhibition of the late British multi-media artist Donald Rodney (b.1961, West Bromwich; d.1998, London) to London.

26/01/2025

“I am not a vo**ur. Voyeurs photograph through closed windows and with me the window is always wide open.” - Nan Goldin.

23 years ago, Whitechapel Gallery opened its doors to ‘The Devil’s Playground’, the first major UK exhibition of legendary American photographer and activist, Nan Goldin.

The exhibition featured over three hundred prints from her photographic career since the 1970s, including two of her most notable works: ‘Heartbeat’ (2001) and ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’ (1981–1996).

Did you visit?





Image: Courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery Archives.

24/01/2025

Join the fam and become a Whitechapel Member!

Your membership supports Whitechapel Gallery as a place of free thinking, creative inspiration and learning for all.

Join for £50 (standard) or £30 (concessionary) and enjoy:

Unlimited free entry to our exhibitions
Bring a friend for free
50% off all talks and events
10% discount on exclusive artist editions
10% discount on books
10% discount in our cafe

Find out more via, https://ow.ly/3HrK50UMBMh



Image: Dan Weill.

23/01/2025

Take a piece of the gallery home with you!

Whilst the exhibitions have ended, you can keep them close to home with the ‘Lygia Clark x Sonia Boyce’ catalogue.
By pairing these two artists, the publication illuminates interconnected art histories, offering an expanded rather than fragmented perspective on transnational art practices.

Whether diving into the text or dressing up your coffee table, treat yourself to this beautiful publication.

£29.99

Shop now via our website: https://shop.whitechapelgallery.org/collections/exhibition-catalogues/products/lygia-clark-x-sonia-boyce

22/01/2025

Explore our beautiful selection of Artist Editions and treat yourself this January.

Whitechapel Gallery editions are generously donated by the artists. All proceeds from the sale of these works directly support our exhibition and participation programmes. As is traditional in editions publishing, prices will rise as an edition starts to sell out.

Find out more https://shop.whitechapelgallery.org/collections/editions




Sonia Boyce
Put Your Hands Together (2024)
Digital pigment print on Hahnemuhle Metallic Photo Rag 340gsm
30 x 30cm
Edition of 50, signed and numbered

21/01/2025

Fret not—while our main galleries are temporarily closed for installation, the free film programme ‘Sonia Boyce x Lygia Clark’ is still available to watch!

This programme delves into the journeys of two pioneering artists from different eras, places, and socio-political contexts, united by their commitment to audience participation in their artworks.

Find out more, https://ow.ly/Uni350UK2Sn





Image: Courtesy Associacão Cultural O Mundo de Lygia Clark

20/01/2025

we wish Amalia Ulman a very happy birthday!

Amalia Ulman is an Argentinian artist based in New York City whose practice spans performance, installation, video, and net-art.

In 2017, as part of the major tech-tonic exhibition Electronic Superhighway at Whitechapel Gallery, Ulman presented Excellences & Perfections. This work was a four-month-long Instagram documentary series examining how social media influences perceptions of the female form.

Did you visit this exhibition?




Image. Amalia Ulman, Excellences & Perfections (Instagram Update, 20th June 2014), (feather
necklace yay or nay?), 2015(Excellences & Perfections) Performance. Courtesy the artist and Deborah Schamoni

19/01/2025

‘She’s good enough to be a real actress’ - Andy Warhol on Cindy Sherman.

Wishing artist, Cindy Sherman, a very Happy Birthday (b.19 Jan 1954).

Sherman gained fame with her Untitled Film Stills (1977-80), a collection of 69 black-and-white photos where she acts as both photographer and model. The series features her in various stereotypical female roles, inspired by Hollywood B-movies, film noir, and European art-house cinema, all of which were iconic in the cultural landscape of the '50s and '60s.

In 1991, Whitechapel Gallery hosted a groundbreaking exhibition of Cindy Sherman in London’s East End. If you missed it in the '90s, we’ve unearthed some incredible images from our archive to refresh your memory.




Image: Whitechapel Gallery Archive.

18/01/2025

‘My art erupts from outrage at the fact that the search for financial profit rules every nook and cranny of our society.’ - Peter Kennard

Tomorrow is your last chance to catch ‘Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent’ at Whitechapel Gallery.

This monumental survey includes works which not only serve to expose the relationship between power, capital, war and the destruction of planet Earth but also ‘to show new possibilities emerging from the cracks and splinters of the old reality.’

Visit today before it's too late!

Find out more, https://ow.ly/cIwC50UIve8




Image. Courtesy of the artist and Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, Rome and New York.