The Whitechapel Gallery is a hidden gem in the East End of London. Opened in 1901, it was one of London’s leading modern and contemporary art galleries, famously bringing Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ to London in 1938. Constrained for space compared to, for example, the extension of the Tate into the massive Bankside power station in 2000, it took over and extended into the adjacent Passmore Edwards Library in 2009. It also has a community mission and, even with the new extension, it manages to squeeze an impressive variety of exhibitions into a relatively small series of spaces which still reflect the original architecture of the different buildings, with the galleries flowing and interconnecting with each other.
Currently the ‘London Open 2018′ shows the work of a variety of artists – local and international – working across London, reflecting the city’s global artistic community working in a wide variety of media including digital and video, and a selection of work from more established artists in the ISelf Collection in ‘Bumped Bodies’ where human expression is depicted in a variety of different and subtle ways.