Whitechapel Gallery

28/06/2025

As part of Whitechapel Gallery’s ‘The London Open Live’ – a 13-week programme showcasing 15 performance artists – Helen Davison presents ‘aggregate’ (2025)

In ‘aggregate’, Helen Davison tests the human form under the weight of various materials, layered over time. The durational performance tracks the body’s response to pressure and the moments of connection it finds outside of itself.

aggregate (2025)
 Thu 3 Jul, 5.30-8.30pm
 Sat 5 & Sun 6 Jul, 2-5pm 

This is a durational performance, and audiences are welcome to drop in and out.
Please note this performance contains nudity.

Book your free ticket now and view the full London Open Live Programme, via

 
 

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.