Attempted Art Review: Whitechapel Gallery

Last Weekend I wandered down the road with the vague idea of walking from the East End to the Tate Modern, however deciding I was really not in the mood I ended up in Whitechapel Gallery, a space I have been meaning to go to for YEARS but never actually made it! Visiting on a Sunday early afternoon meant the place was somewhat busy, almost too busy in places, I find visiting Galleries great for relaxation and rejuvenation however if they are busy I find them the worst places on earth. Luckily London has a mass of galleries and those visiting tend to be 'millers' as opposed to 'queuers', queueing to look at a painting is something I DETEST.

Anyhow, totally unaware of what was showing I ended up having a gander at pretty much everything. From what I gather the key exhibition at the moment is John Stezaker (Gallery 1 until 18th March) who had only just imaged. I have never heard of him, in retrospect reading the leaflet I discovered he's british and that it's his first major exhibition. In simple terms he is all about collage and 'the lure of images', he cuts and pastes found images together to create meaning... in many ways he is the epitome of modern art because 'Anyone can cut some pictures together and make a collage', however there is something about his choice in images and the meaning created by the way he mashes them together that makes you actually think, well no, I couldn't do that. Well, I couldn't do it and create that meaning anyhow.

The second exhibition I poked my head around was Bethan Huwys. In all fairness a pretentious foreign lady in her fifties summed it up by asking the attendant  'Where is the art', the attendant looked bemused and confused and the lady repeated the question. I like it when people play with space but for me, and the lady Bethan Huwys does it far too subtly... for those that are interested, the lady was standing in the middle of the 'installation' when she asked the question, hence the attendants response. Of blankness.

My favourite work was definitely the moving image work in the Zilkha Auditorium, now I am terrible at reviewing still art let alone art that involves moving image, all I can say is that up until today, it was the best moving image I've seen in a looooong time, I believe the last was somewhere in Seoul....

Three pieces are featured by Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Jalal Toufic and Huang Xiaopeng. They are all awesome, I would advise you to just go and see them because anything I will say will not do them justice!