Peter Liversidge: Notes on Protesting

17 March – 14 June 2015, Galleries 5 & 6
Free Entry

British artist Peter Liversidge (b. 1973) presents a new solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery inspired by ideas around demonstration and protest.

The exhibition is the result of a collaboration with groups of primary school children from east London, who worked with the artist to compose and write lyrics for protest songs, create choreography and design banners and placards.

A film of the performances taking place at the Whitechapel Gallery on May Day 2014 and on London’s South Bank shows the artist and sixty children aged 8 and 9 from Marion Richardson Primary School in Tower Hamlets in demonstration. The film work is displayed alongside hand painted banners and archive material.

For the project Liversidge held workshops over a 4 month period to encourage the children to express their views on community and the power of a collective voice. The songs included everything from a rally against homework and a dislike of tight fitting shoes to tales of the school playground and everyday life in east London. Documentation of the workshops, rehearsals and lyrics which included ‘Less trucks and cars / More chocolate bars!’ and ‘I Don’t Like Cooked Tomatoes’ are also featured in the display.

Liversidge is a conceptual artist whose work combines elements of performance and documentation. He is interested in the processes of making artworks and the success or failure of an idea. A central aspect of every new work he creates is a typewritten ‘proposal’ relating to a specific site or commission. If a proposal reaches completion the results can range from painting, books and installations of found or made objects to solo performances and large scale participatory events.

Liversidge has worked on a number of proposals for the Whitechapel Gallery in the past. For the 2013 exhibition The Spirit of Utopia he staged a live stand-up comedy night open to the public, a fictitious exhibition archive and an event where ‘summer snow’ emitted from large snow machines, temporarily showering visitors and passers-by with flecks of white foam in the height of summer.

Peter Liversidge: Notes on Protesting is on display in galleries 5 & 6, spaces dedicated to the Whitechapel Gallery’s work with schools and local communities.

To coincide with the display the artist will re-stage the performance Notes on Protesting  on May Day 2015 (Friday 1 May 2015) 12pm with pupils from Marion Richardson Primary School.

Notes for Editors

• Peter Liversidge was born in Lincoln, UK in 1973. He lives and works in London. He has worked with a diverse range of institutions, including Tate Liverpool (2008); the Centre d’art Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2008); Bloomberg SPACE, London (2009); The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2010); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); Tate Modern, London (2013); Tang Museum, Saratoga (2013/14); i8 Gallery, Reykjavik (2014); Printed Matter, New York (2014); Drawing Room, London (2014); The Mac, Belfast (2014); Matt’s Gallery, London (2014) and Basis, Frankfurt (2014/15). A monograph on Liversidge’s work, Selected Proposals, was published in August 2013.
• For over a century, the Whitechapel 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, Lucian Freud, Gilbert & George and Mark Wallinger. With beautiful galleries, exhibitions, artist commissions, collection displays, historic archives, education resources, inspiring art courses, café/bar and bookshop, the Gallery is open all year round, so there is always something free to see. The Gallery is a touchstone for contemporary art internationally, plays a central role in London’s cultural landscape and is pivotal to the continued growth of the world’s most vibrant contemporary art quarter. The Gallery believes that art has the power to transform the lives of children and young people, and pioneered gallery education and community outreach. Working with thousands of children and young people annually, leading artists collaborate with those who have the greatest need for opportunity, and their art is celebrated through exhibitions in galleries 5 & 6, which are dedicated to education projects. www.whitechapelgallery.org/learn.
• Peter Liversidge: Notes on Protesting is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. 2014 performances commissioned by the Emdash Foundation and realised in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery

Visitor Information

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

Press Information

For further press information and images contact:

Alex O’Neill
Senior Press and Communications Officer, Whitechapel Gallery
T +44 (0)20 7539 3360 E alexoneill@whitechapelgallery.org