The London Open Call For Artists

The London Open

Calling all Artists Whitechapel Gallery announces open competition for 2012

The Whitechapel Gallery calls for all artists aged 26 or over living and working in London to enter The London Open, the Gallery’s triennial open submission exhibition. Providing a snapshot of art now, the exhibition aims to showcase the most dynamic and engaging work being made across the capital to an international audience in 2012.
 
The London Open offers a timely opportunity to see the latest developments and key emerging trends in contemporary art. Selected from open submissions, all of the works will have been made since 2000.
 
A panel of leading art experts will select work by both new and more established artists. The panel includes writer and critic Patricia Bickers, artist Rodney Graham, collector Jack Kirkland, curator Marta Kuzma and Whitechapel Gallery curator Kirsty Ogg.
 
2012 marks the 80th anniversary of the Gallery’s open submission exhibition which started in 1932 as the East End Academy ‘for all artists living or working East of the famous Aldgate Pump’.  It later became the Whitechapel Open, and showcased artists early in their careers such as Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Julian Opie, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry, Bob & Roberta Smith, Richard Wentworth and Rachel Whiteread.   For 2012 and beyond the Gallery is expanding the reach of the exhibition to artists London-wide to recognise the Gallery’s cultural role in the city.
 
The Whitechapel Gallery is ‘the artist’s gallery for everyone’ and is free and open all year round.  For over a century the Gallery has premiered world-class artists from modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Frida Kahlo to contemporaries such as Sophie Calle, Lucien Freud, Gilbert & George and Mark Wallinger.  The Gallery is a touchstone for contemporary art internationally and plays a central role in London’s cultural landscape, with The London Open continuing this tradition by providing a platform for artists living and working in one of the most diverse cultural centres in the world in 2012 to show their work.
 
Iwona Blazwick OBE, Director, Whitechapel Gallery, said, ‘There has never been a more exciting time to be an artist in London.  It feels like Paris at the turn of the 20th century or New York in the 1980s – a nexus of cultural creativity.  We are throwing open the doors of our historic institution to all artists creating work in the capital, as the world comes to our doorstep in 2012. I look forward to seeing major works by modern masters alongside the next generation of leading international artists.’
 
The London Open is open for submissions from 3 October – 25 November 2011 at thelondonopen.org.  The exhibition will be held at the Whitechapel Gallery from 4 July – 14 September 2012.
The panel selecting works for The London Open includes:Patricia Bickers, editor of Art Monthly. She is the author of The Brit Pack: Contemporary British Art, the View from Abroad and numerous essays. In 2008 she curated Print the Legend: The Myth of the West at the Fruitmarket Gallery,Edinburgh. She has been associated with awards including New Contemporaries,1994, The Turner Prize, 2001, and the Northern Art Prize, 2009. Rodney Graham, leading international artist who lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He presented Vexation Island  in the Canadian Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale and made a solo exhibition for the Whitechapel Gallery in 2002. His recent exhibition Rodney Graham – Through the Forest  toured to Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg and Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel in 2010. Jack Kirklandwho studied and practiced law, then worked in real estate and investments with the Abstract Group of Companies before becoming a director of Bowmer & Kirkland, one of the largest private construction companies in the UK. He collects art widely and also sits on the board of Modern Art Oxford and the Tate’s Latin American and Photography Acquisitions Committees. Marta Kuzma, Director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). She co-curated Manifesta 5 in San Sebastián, Spain in 2004, and is part of the curatorial team of documenta (13).  Kuzma is a visiting professor for the post-graduate Visual Arts programme at the University IUAV in Venice and a member of the editorial board of contemporary arts journal Afterall. Kirsty Ogg, curator at the Whitechapel Gallery and of The London Open.  She was previously Director of The Showroom, London, a gallery dedicated to commissioning new work by artists at an early stage in their careers, where she worked with artists including Jim Lambie, Claire Barclay, Eva Rothschild, Subodh Gupta, Richard Hughes and Daria Martin.  At the Whitechapel Gallery she has curated exhibitions including Where Three  Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; Bethan Huws:Capelgwyn and Paul Graham Photographs 1981 – 2006. Kirsty also lectures at Goldsmiths University.

A special publication will accompany the exhibition. Works in The London Open will be for sale.  Selected artists will also produce a range of limited edition artworks in support of the Whitechapel Gallery’s exhibitions and education programme.
 
Visitor Information

The London Open, 4 July – 14 September 2012, Galleries 1, 8 and Victor Petitgas Gallery (Gallery 9), Whitechapel Gallery. Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm, Thursdays, 11am – 9pm.  Admission free. Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Nearest London Underground Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Tower Gateway DLR. T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888 info@whitechapelgallery.org   whitechapelgallery.org
 

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