Thu 28 Aug, 7pm & 8.30pm
Gallery 2
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
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For complete access information about the gallery, please visit https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/.
Breaking a dance is a new live work by William Mackrell in which he attempts to jump and move under the colossal weight of penny coins glued onto his overalls. The coppery outfit glistens in a visual overload reminiscent of the sparkling embroidered suits of the Pearly Kings and Queens of London’s East End. Surrounded by fluorescent light bulbs, flickering in a natural state of breakdown, the performance is flooded with the sounds of spilling coins. Sourced from artist studio associations across London, the obsolete bulbs echo the precarious temporality of London as an environment to live and work in. As the performance unravels, these all-consuming desires and illusions of capitalism drive Mackrell’s body into inescapable exhaustion.
William Mackrell is an artist whose performance work uses the body to delve into sensations of touch, absence and desire. Throughout his works there is an embedded thread of expanding conversations with the constant trembling city, whether this begins with sleeping on a bed of carbon paper to produce a receipt of his sleep or positioning fluorescent light tubes at the end of their life, flickering and pulsating in the diaphragm of a performer.
Mackrell graduated from the MFA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths (2016) and BA Painting at Chelsea College of Art, London (2005). Public gallery exhibitions include Manchester Art Gallery (2025); Lapidarium Museum, Croatia (2024); Buffalo AKG Art Museum (2017); and Dundee Contemporary Arts (2012). Residencies and awards include, Krinzinger Vienna (2023 & 2017), LaunchPad France (2019); Fluxus Art Projects (2021); Manchester Contemporary Art Fund (2017); and Arts Council England (2014).
Public collections include Manchester Art Gallery; Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Lapidarium Museum Croatia; and Goldsmiths Alumni Collection. Mackrell’s work has been exhibited internationally including solo exhibitions at Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, Paris (2021); Liste Basel (2022); ArtBo Bogota (2019); Arco Madrid (2018); LUNGLEY Gallery, London (2023); The Ryder – Art Gallery, Madrid (2021); and Galerie Krinzinger Vienna (2019).
