Whitechapel Gallery — Attraction in London

Whitechapel Gallery is conveniently located near Aldgate East tube station and focuses on modern/avantgarde art, with a definite feminist vibe to the place. There are several temporary exhibitions at the same time, spread over three floors and ten rooms (galleries). Most of the exhibitions are free, but there's always a "premium", rather extensive exhibition on, the current one being on abstract female painters from the 1940s to the 70s. The price (UKP 16) seemed reasonable, and it featured a number of high profile artists, including Lee Krasner, wife of Jackson Pollock. Definitely recommended if you're interested in abstract painting. The floors are intelligently laid out, and there's a small but interesting shop on the ground floor. The free exhibitions were intriguing (and political), too, so I spent an interesting 2 hours at Whitechapel Gallery. When you're done with London's big art museums, why not check out this place? Photography was allowed in all the exhibitions, which was a...

I love this gallery, and come here often. OK, it’s right next to the tube station, and they have toilets….. But while I’m here, I’ll have a look around, and the conceptual installation art they exhibit does make me think. Unfortunately I don’t know much, so can’t think for very long, but I do have questions:

Can I take one of those magazines, or would that be vandalism?

Are the people looking at that pile of magazines, thinking intellectual thoughts, or are they thinking what I’m thinking?

Do artists create these installations because they’ve risen above more traditional art forms, or is it because they’re not very good at drawing cats?

Was I supposed to buy a ticket for this bit, and come in through a different door?

They have a good bookshop, so maybe I’ll buy some of those books and hopefully get some answers.

And if you’re here for the first time, and come to what feels like an out-of-bounds staircase, or a forgotten corridor between cupboards, keep going, there’s...

Thoughtful, well-paced, the kind of curation that gives you space to breathe and still hits you in the gut. Go for the art, yes. But let’s not pretend: I’m here for the bookshop.

The Whitechapel Gallery bookshop is dangerous. It’s small but brutal. Everything is too good. Every shelf has at least three things you didn’t know you needed. You walk in thinking, just a browse, and leave wondering if books can replace intimacy (they can’t, but they’ll hold you through the comedown).

If you’ve ever wanted to ruin your budget in the most beautiful way possible, this is the place. Whitechapel Gallery: come for the exhibitions, stay because you blacked out in the bookshop and woke up with five new Documents from Contemporary Art category books and a tertiary TBR pile.

And huge update to this! The bookshop is now carrying Apparitions from tent.press featuring some of my writing along with art and words from other South London visual scholars....