Gillian Wearing + Artists Film International
dal 27/3/2012 al 16/6/2012
Segnalato da
27/3/2012
Gillian Wearing + Artists Film International
Whitechapel, London
Wearing's films and photographs explore our public personas and private lives. They reveal a paradox, given the chance to dress up, put on a mask or act out a role, the liberation of anonymity allows us to be more truly ourselves. 'Artists Film International' meditates on ideas of migration, displacement and journeying through individual stories informed by wider socio-economic and political conditions.
Gillian Wearing
Galleries 1, 8 & 9
The films and photographs of British artist Gillian Wearing (b. Birmingham, 1963) explore our public personas and private lives. This Turner Prize winner’s remarkable works draw on fly-on-the-wall documentaries, reality TV and the techniques of theatre, to explore how we present ourselves to the world.
Wearing’s portraits and mini-dramas reveal a paradox, given the chance to dress up, put on a mask or act out a role, the liberation of anonymity allows us to be more truly ourselves.
The exhibition begins with the artist herself, dancing in a shopping mall, blissfully unaware of her bemused audience. The idea of performance continues with works including Wearing’s 1997 masterpiece, 10–16. Adults lip synch the voices and act out the physical tics of seven children in a captivating film which moves from the breathless excitement of a ten year old to the existential angst of an adolescent.
Other highlights include Wearing’s iconic 1992 series, Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say where strangers are offered paper and pen to communicate their message. In the upper galleries we enter the inner world of subjectivity. An advert - Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry, You Will Be In Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian… (1994) attracted a series of disturbing disclosures. Wearing jettisons her own identity to adopt the guise of family members or artists such as Diane Arbus or Andy Warhol, so revealing her own background and influence.
This comprehensive survey, which also premieres new films and sculptures, shows how Wearing is both political - often focusing on the dispossessed or the traumatised – and poetic, finding the extraordinary in us all.
The exhibition is supported by a fully illustrated catalogue, with essays by David Deamer, Daniel F. Herrmann, Doris Krystof and Bernhart Schwenk. Special exhibition price £24.95. With thanks to Maureen Paley, London. Organised with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Touring to Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Exhibition supported by Vicky Hughes and John Smith.
Image: Gillian Wearing. Self Portrait at 17 Years Old. 2003. Framed C-type print. Courtesy Maureen Paley, London.
Tickets: £9.50/7.50 concessions (incl. Gift Aid donation); £8.50/6.50 (excl. Gift Aid)
Free admission for you and a friend with Whitechapel Gallery Membership.
Free for under 16s.Free for local residents on 24 April and 29 May.
Dawn to dusk opening: friday 15 June, 8am–Midnight.
Late night openings: every Thursday and Friday until 9pm.
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Artists Film International
Zilkha Auditorium
This season of artists’ films meditates on ideas of migration, displacement and journeying through individual stories informed by wider socio-economic and political conditions.
Alejandro Cesarco’s recent film Zeide Isaac (2009) features the artist’s grandfather performing a script written by the artist but based on his grandfather’s personal story as a Holocaust survivor, allowing for the gap between first-hand testimony and third generation re-telling to be explored.
STANZE (2010) by Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio is based on the accounts of young political refugees from Somalia. Housed in a notorious former barracks in Turin, they re-visit throughstorytelling and re-enactment Italy’scolonial past in the Horn of Africa and itsongoing repercussions on their own efforts to fi nd a ‘home’.
In Gipsy Style (2009), Aleksandar Jestrovic Jamesdin uses a low-tech video camera to record an 80 day ‘vacation’ during which the artist swims his way through public fountains in major European cities, playing on ideas of tourism and travel, and in The Last Tango (2011) records the moments in a plane just before take-off.
Artists’ Film International showcases international artists working with film, video and animation, selected by 12 partner organisations around the world. Alejandro Cesarco is selected by Fundaçion PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio by GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy and Aleksandar Jestrovic Jamesdin by Belgrade Cultural Centre, Belgrade, Serbia.
Admission free
For further press information please contact:
Rachel Mapplebeck Head of Communications
T: +44 (0)20 7522 7880 rachelmapplebeck@whitechapelgallery.org
Daisy Mallabar Media Relations Manager
T: +44 (0)20 7522 7871 daisymallabar@whitechapelgallery.org
Alex O'Neill Press Officer
T: +44 (0)20 7539 3360 alexoneill@whitechapelgallery.org
Opening 28 march
Whitechapel Gallery
Victor Petitgas Gallery (Gallery 9)
77 - 82 Whitechapel High Street, London
Opening times: Tuesday - Sunday, 11am - 6pm, Thursdays, 11am - 9pm.
Admission free.