Whitechapel Files
02 Mar - 25 Jun 2006
Founded in 1901, the Whitechapel Gallery has hosted some of the most important artistic developments in national and world culture. This exhibition brings together a small sample of materials from the Whitechapel Archive that reflect and narrate the Gallery’s distinctive history. Collected over the course of a century, they present a unique insight into changing approaches to art and exhibition-making, and reflect artists, staff, visitors and other members of the community who have been associated with this history.
The exhibition is divided into five key sections:
Origins looks into the first twenty years of the Whitechapel (1901-1921). The items selected for this section echo the diverse range of events that took place in the Gallery’s early days, when the Whitechapel functioned as a community and cultural centre as well as showcasing the best of world art.
Multiplicities depicts the Whitechapel’s strong commitment to exhibiting art produced outside mainstream commercial and aesthetic centres. Responsive to the cultural diversity of the community it served and the art scene worldwide, the gallery supported collaborations with Jewish writers and artists, artists from Asia, as well as artists from Europe and Latin America.
Communities focuses on exhibitions, events and other gallery activities which have been made possible by the direct involvement and collaboration of the local community. The material in this section represents a small sample of exhibitions by local emerging artists, artists who focus on East London as their subject matter, and educational workshops and events run in partnership with local schools and community groups.
Artists looks into practices deriving from different artistic backgrounds and styles, focusing in particular on tendencies that developed in the post war period. Examples chosen here look at artists who considered the gallery not as a space for displaying works, but as a space for experiencing art as environment.
Politics brings to light archive material that reflects different interfaces between politics and art. It refers to art explicitly made as a tool for propaganda, art instrumentalised as a tool for political activity and art that uses the tactics of activism as an artistic medium. Some materials are not directly related to Whitechapel exhibitions but entered the archive as a result of the Whitechapel’s broader engagement with the community.
Whitechapel Files is organised in advance of the Archive becoming permanently accessible to the public from 2008, after the Whitechapel’s expansion into the former Library building. Principle funders of the Whitechapel expansion project are Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England. The exhibition is curated by Nayia Yiakoumaki, Archive Research Curator, Whitechapel with the assistance of Hannah Tempest, Archive Intern, Whitechapel.
The exhibition is divided into five key sections:
Origins looks into the first twenty years of the Whitechapel (1901-1921). The items selected for this section echo the diverse range of events that took place in the Gallery’s early days, when the Whitechapel functioned as a community and cultural centre as well as showcasing the best of world art.
Multiplicities depicts the Whitechapel’s strong commitment to exhibiting art produced outside mainstream commercial and aesthetic centres. Responsive to the cultural diversity of the community it served and the art scene worldwide, the gallery supported collaborations with Jewish writers and artists, artists from Asia, as well as artists from Europe and Latin America.
Communities focuses on exhibitions, events and other gallery activities which have been made possible by the direct involvement and collaboration of the local community. The material in this section represents a small sample of exhibitions by local emerging artists, artists who focus on East London as their subject matter, and educational workshops and events run in partnership with local schools and community groups.
Artists looks into practices deriving from different artistic backgrounds and styles, focusing in particular on tendencies that developed in the post war period. Examples chosen here look at artists who considered the gallery not as a space for displaying works, but as a space for experiencing art as environment.
Politics brings to light archive material that reflects different interfaces between politics and art. It refers to art explicitly made as a tool for propaganda, art instrumentalised as a tool for political activity and art that uses the tactics of activism as an artistic medium. Some materials are not directly related to Whitechapel exhibitions but entered the archive as a result of the Whitechapel’s broader engagement with the community.
Whitechapel Files is organised in advance of the Archive becoming permanently accessible to the public from 2008, after the Whitechapel’s expansion into the former Library building. Principle funders of the Whitechapel expansion project are Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England. The exhibition is curated by Nayia Yiakoumaki, Archive Research Curator, Whitechapel with the assistance of Hannah Tempest, Archive Intern, Whitechapel.