Iwona Blazwick. Courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery
Iwona Blazwick has been director of the consistently brash and groundbreaking Whitechapel Gallery since 2003. The institution has what she terms a “history of firsts.” Since its inception over a century ago, it has striven to emphasise all of art history’s underdogs – from non-Western and non-male artists to disregarded mediums – in essence, rewriting the canon. With a busy winter approaching, here she talks about the gallery’s past, present and future.
Interview by Mara Goldwyn
Sleek: The Whitechapel is sort of the Velvet Underground of galleries – not many people knew the band, but then those who did started their own. What is it about the Whitechapel that gets people excited that the art world is something they want to – and can – participate in?
Iwona Blazwick: I hope it’s the integrity of the programme and the fact that it’s giving a platform for artists that are in a very particular moment in their careers. That’s very much in our DNA… we’ve been able to show the significant things of tomorrow, today. That’s been happening since we showed Picasso’s “Guernica” in 1939. At the same time it’s not the “closing of the book” that retrospectives can do. [The programme] is very artist-driven. It doesn’t compromise. We do everything in our power to realise an artist’s vision. The challenge for us is to keep in touch with what artists’ practice is about, what’s concerning artists, how they’re working.
You often seem to focus on work that is on the outskirts of what art-making can mean. What does it mean to be part of an institution that is on the periphery and in the centre at once?
I’m not sure about periphery, because everything is both local and global now. The idea about centre and margin has changed – I don’t quite buy it anymore. On the other hand, it is true we are able to work in far-flung places. We have a consortium of spaces around the world, and in each of these places we have a partner who has a black-box space where we show moving-image work. We’re trying to get away from ideas of “centre and periphery” and say that everything is simultaneously available.
I wasn’t only speaking geographically, but also in terms of gender, underrepresented groups and so on…
We are entering a period of a sort of revisionism. It feels to me that the institution and the market are looking back and recognising the achievements of women artists, or artists who were not making objects, who weren’t part of the canon of making paintings. There’s a reappraisal of figures completely outside of the marketplace who, by virtue of gender or medium weren’t registering – and yet we’re only beginning to understand how important they are.
In that context, could you talk about the forthcoming Hannah Höch exhibition?
She is someone who is being recognised as one of the great figures of the early Twentieth Century – particularly in her work with collage – and in the significance of collage itself. She saw the Occupation, she lived through the Nazi era, she also protected many artists and hid their works and saved them from destruction. She was at the forefront of resisting the forces of Fascism at that time.
She was creating a particular discourse in dialogue with other artists, but at the same time hers is a very singular achievement. It’s very noticeably locked in the idea of the body, and compared to say, [John] Heartfield, which is more a satire about war and warmongering, hers is more psychoanalytically rooted in the symbols she uses and the often very disturbing images she creates.
How does Höch’s work resonate now?
It’s partly seeing the return of collage. It’s a very accessible medium… Anyone can enter into this universe of images we live with and make a different sort of sense out of them, which can be a form of resistance. We thought it was a great moment to pull together 40 years of work – which we’ve been uniquely able to do.
Whitechapel also seems dedicated to nurturing the careers of promising women artists. Why is it important to give extra support to women in the art world? The art world is vast and can be a very hungry, rapidly-moving organism, and if someone steps out, even for just a year [to have a family], it can easily rush past them. Also, women’s ability to make a living from art is much less than their male contemporaries. But most importantly, what I want to be able to do is recognise not that they’re “women artists” but that the condition of being female affects what they do. It is a very particular vision and response to the world. Other women can then see that they too could become artists.
Can you tell us a little about the upcoming Jasper Johns show at the Whitechapel Gallery in Windsor, Florida?
This is one of three exhibitions that celebrate pioneers in printmaking which I think is very high on contemporary artists’ agendas at the moment. It is a reflection of the legacy of Joseph Beuys, and many artists in the1960s – Yoko Ono, the Fluxus movement – of wanting a work of art in every home. It’s a democratisation of the art object, making works that are available to mere mortals like you and I.
Taken from Sleek 40 “Man/Boy”
Iwona Blazwick curates an exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery at Windsor, Florida, featuring work by Jasper Johns, until April 30, 2014. The first UK retrospective of Hannah Höch’s work opens at The Whitechapel Gallery on January 15, 2014.