Week 5 - #35 Visit the Whitechapel Gallery

A one line review of the Whitechapel Gallery? I don't get it.

To elaborate - the Whitechapel Gallery opened in the early 1900s. It specialises in promoting the work of artists that live and work in the East End, but has also done major early exhibitions of more famous folk like Picasso and Rothko. From what I can gather from the website (and could be bothered to read in the gallery - it was a bright sunny day and I was very hungover), they redeveloped and re-opened the gallery recently.

Situated bang next to Aldgate East station, it's a beautiful space - simultaneously modern and bright but with original (Victorian) touches in the architecture that give it just the right amount of gravitas (you're looking at art here, people - art). But the layout is very confusing - I am not sure whether I even saw everything as there didn't seem to be any kind of 'Go this way now' guidance - perhaps a nod to a more bohemian approach to curating?

There were four (five?) gallery spaces, plus a small cinema and an impressive reading room/library, obviously lovingly donated by a kind patron of the arts. The main piece I wanted to see, Goshka Macuga's woven interpretation of Picasso's Guernica in cloth, was actually amazing, and well worth the visit by itself really. Go and see it.

The rest of the art, well, erm...I just don't know. There were a couple of nice pieces of sculpture, pleasing mirror and glass that meant my companion got distracted by how tanned his legs were getting. The rest was, in my humble opinion, much like the stuff I'd see at Winchester School of Art's foundation course shows, everyone trying to out-do each other in their 'craziness' - yawn. There were mannequins in shopping trolleys and blocks of concrete with metal rods sticking out of them. Maybe I am not sophisticated in my tastes, but there is modern art out there that I like, I promise.

Perhaps it's also the location, and the general bored superiority of most of the people working there, but it was all very 'East London' - not something I particularly buy in to. And while I don't need to be told what to look at and how long for, a little help with order of exhibitions may have come in handy. Beautiful space though, and in keeping with the rarely-celebrated but hugely important tradition of London galleries, it's free entry. My favourite price.