This is Whitechapel
11 March - 4 September 2011
Gallery 4
In 1972 the Whitechapel Gallery commissioned British photographer Ian Berry, renowned for his coverage of conflict, to turn his lens to everyday life in east London. He captured the last members of a dwindling Jewish community and the arrival of new faces from the Caribbean and South Asia; slum clearances heralding brutal high-rise towers; pineapples appearing in a greengrocer’s window; and a cobbler meeting the demands of a growing youth culture with star-spangled platform heels.
This is Whitechapel presents photographs and archive material from Berry’s momentous commission revealing the poverty, the acts of kindness and community and the political tensions that are still evident today. Alongside are films and publications produced in the 1970s by fi lmmakers and writers such as Maggie Pinhorn, Tunde Ikoli and the Basement Writers group and recent work by Chris Dorley-Brown.
Admission free
Supported by:
The Foyle Foundation.
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
In collaboration with the cooperative photography agency, Magnum Photos. Printing by Metro Imaging.
With thanks to Maggie Pinhorn.
Image: Ian Berry Man with his daughter and kitten in London’s East End. Whitechapel. London, 1972. © the photographer / the cooperative photography agency, Magnum Photos
