1. Pregnant White Maid (Elmgreen & Dragset)
    Elmgreen & Dragset
  2. Guy Montagu-Pollock
    Guy Montagu-PollockWhitechapel Gallery facade, with the Tree of Life by Rachel Whiteread.
  • Art | Galleries
  • Whitechapel
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Whitechapel Gallery

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Time Out says

This East End stalwart reopened in 2009 following a major redesign and expansion that saw the Grade II listed building transformed into a vibrant, holistic centre of art complete with a research centre, archives room and café. Since 1901, Whitechapel Art Gallery has built on its reputation as a pioneering contemporary institution and is well remembered for premiering the talents of exhibitions by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Frida Kahlo among others. Expect the rolling shows to be challenging and risqué.

Details

Address
77-82 Whitechapel High St
London
E1 7QX
Transport:
Tube: Aldgate East
Price:
Free
Opening hours:
Tue-Sun (except Thu) 11am-6pm; Thu 11am-9pm.
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What’s on

Peter Kennard: ‘Archive of Dissent’

4 out of 5 stars

Peter Kennard is outraged, irate and angry. Because when the British artist and professor of political art looks at the world around him, he sees nothing but injustice, greed, violence and pain. But rather than shouting pointlessly about it or collapsing into a powerless heap like the rest of us, he channels his ire into art. His stark photomontages have been a visual diary of corporate greed and state warfare for decades. Here at the Whitechapel, posters from throughout his career attack nuclear proliferation, the Gulf War, Thatcher, British imperialism, Nato’s involvement in Yugoslavia, privatisation and countless other charged, sensitive, volatile topics. His best work is instantly recognisable: minimal, funny, shocking, filled with skulls and gas masks and bombs and barbed wire. Peace symbols disarm warheads, the earth wears a gas mask, hands crush missiles. Kennard is screamingly, heatedly anti-war, anti-nuclear, anti-imperial. These vicious, confrontational images represent the despair of the powerless. The same images appear repeatedly – gas masks and clocks and bombs – but here updated in a recent installation with Palestinian flags, their red running like blood. The final installation combines his original montages with newspapers in which they were reprinted. This is art for dissemination, messages to be spread, not something pretty for your wall.  Kennard’s influence today is obvious and widespread, and his visual language has been latched onto by countless younger

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