#The Whitworth Art Gallery

[sarahjennings]

Open House exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery Manchester. Showcasing the archive of wallpapers, which the Whitworth began collecting in 1967, they now have a collection of over 10,000 samples.

There are samples from so many different decades and designs, which also feature family photographs from all times and backgrounds. When I saw the family photos I instantly thought about my project about my own memories, with all the albums and objects on display.

There was a huge sense of community within the space, with the collaborations of the collections. With the space itself becoming someones home.

There were lots of nostalgic themes throughout the exhibition, as if it were a time capsule. Even though I didn't live through the eras primarily shown in the exhibition, there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity, which is something I want my own work to show.

Visited on 15th November 2022

[motherlanguageday]

Participate to the Exhibit entitled ''Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery".

EMBROIDERY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CULTURAL MATERIAL OF PALESTINE. THIS ANCIENT PRACTICE, CALLED TATREEZ IN ARABIC, IS CHARACTERISED BY REMARKABLE BEAUTY AND COMPLEXITY.

Historically, each area of Palestine was known for different motifs, techniques and textiles. Embroidery constituted a visual language among rural women, and their clothing reflected their origins and identity.

Material Power charts the evolution of embroidery in Palestine over the past century: from rich village tradition, transformed by modernity, to its politicisation in the 1970s and commodification in the present. Over the last 75 years, embroidery has become a powerful symbol of resistance, and the embodiment of resilience on personal and national scales.

On display in the UK for the first time in over 30 years, historical dresses sit alongside the voices of women who continue to embroider today, and the work of contemporary artists critically reinterpreting the practice. Material Power seeks to unfold an intimate, human history of Palestine through clothing.

Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery was organised by The Whitworth, The University of Manchester in collaboration with Kettle’s Yard where it travelled from 8 July – 29 October 2023.

MATERIAL POWER: PALESTINIAN EMBROIDERY

DATE: 21 February - 7 April 2024

TIME: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm

PRICE: Free

VENUE: Whitworth Art Gallery; Oxford Rd, Manchester, M15 6ER

BOOK: Book via website

WEBSITE: www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk

THEME: Activism; Crafts; Exhibition; Languages.

ORGANISER: The Whitworth Art Gallery

BOOK TICKETS

[ukdamo]

Today's Flickr photo(s) with the most hits: the Feminist Greenhouse, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

[daisyswift3]

The first thing I thought when I saw this insta pic Karlie posted was “hey those kinda look like electric chairs” but I didn’t think they actually were electric chairs like WHAT ��‍💫 the descriptions for the electric chair by Andy Warhol are quite sth. The fact that it’s in bright colors despite symbolizing death. Plus there are 2 ✌️ pics in this post that are in black and white.

[juno-thecreative]

Outfit of the Day! | 19.11.24

It’s been an exciting day! UCAS create the future fair and a visit to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. There’s been some incredible exhibits on there recently.

The jacket is from an interactive exhibition by Jakkai Siributr, a commentary on how clothes hold memory particularly in the context of conflict and the covid-19 pandemic in Thailand and its effects on the community. Each jacket was beautifully embroidered into with scenes of peace, ironic given that it’s ex-military uniform.

Metadata:

-3/6 second hand

-1/6 Art exhibition

More of the installation below the cut :3

[zurich-snows]

Broken Sky 2000 by Jonathan Callan b. 1961. Print on paper, metal pins. Photograph: Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester/guardian.co.uk

[reallyhardy]

PLAYTIME!

weird kind of a post but i just wanted to be nerdy about and highlight my summer position - while i'm a digital picture-draw-er most of the time and a bag sewist some of the time, for one little chunk of the year i'm a play facilitator at the whitworth art gallery and every august (where possible) - i'm not interested in having my own children but i love working with them and taking part in something enriching and educational and awesome. sooooo

since 2018 there's been a creative play session on for families every summer holiday. the first one ever was 'the sandpit one' where the learning engagement team turned our learning studio into this bigass sandpit - can be seen in the below video from 0:17 - 0:25:

and it was the beginning of a real shift in the gallery from like... 'make and take' arts and crafts and into creative play sessions (i joined as a volunteer juuust after the sandpit one so we always talk about it but i wasn't actually there for it.)

the next year instead of sand we did water - i was there for this one but i only facilitated a couple days of it. great fun we used a lot of the same things (beakers, sieves, ladles) to play, just in water instead of sand.

i wasn't involved in 'PLAYTIME AT HOME' during covid lockdowns but the theme was mud and i believe the learning engagement team set out ideas for how to play with the mud using stuff most people have at home:

and then another during 2021, this one's good it features annabel one of the artists here who is so much fun, i think she's the coolest. here she and lucy (the learning engagement co-ordinator) explain how it went down:

when we made it 2022 that's when i really came ON BOARD in a big way, and i got to be a play facilitator every day that we were on in something called our scrap studio - we had heaps of stuff from a place called the 'scrap centre' in leeds that rescues packaging material from manufacturing companies - and we had it all to built with and put together and play around in and it was SO much fun. my job all of last august was just to hang around and watch fun happen and it was just so, so mega. mega fun.

(for whatever reason they don't have the 2022 summer video on youtube booo but i do have a twitter link here)

and then THIS summer we're trying to link it up to the 'economics the blockbuster' exhibition currently on inside the gallery so we've got play markets and play 'currency'

and we're having kids make concoctions with our mud kitchens and it's been very cute and fun seeing them 'selling' them to their parents. and to me. it's just been a blast. i hope to just keep doing it forever. also i've been taking pics for my outfit every time and they all include this grey apron 🤣 but it's important it signifies that i'm in charge

[asleepmottley]

This wallpaper (usually held in the Museum of Modern Art) seems to currently be on loan to the Whitworth Gallery here in Manchester.

I saw it and took pictures, as it's part of my art course.

But I thought it looked familiar, though I'd never seen it before. And this is why:

Rage against the machine seemed to use it as inspiration for the cover of their album Renegades (a cover album).

[reallyhardydraws]

sorry for the lack of drawings recently! i've been doing a lil three-day stint running arts and crafts at my beloved whitworth art gallery in collaboration with local charity afrocats - there's pictures on my instagram ( http://instagram.com/reallyhardy ) if you want to see all the wonderful creations all the visitors made!!!

[totallyhussein-blog]

The power of a pattern. What design can teach us about culture

Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery, will explore the historical life and contemporary significance of the Palestinian embroidered dress.

Although an ancient craft, embroidery remains the paradigmatic cultural material of Palestine today and its most prominent living tradition.

This exhibition will be held Friday 24 November 2023 – 7th April 2024 at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Apparently, the Palestinian dress differs from one region to another and according to the occasion on which the dress is worn. In the north where wheat is grown, ears of corn were the most important characteristic of the dresses.

In Hebron and Bethlehem, the trend was grape drawings. The color and inscriptions of the dresses differed depending on the occasion. At weddings, dresses differed from casual, everyday ones. Widows wore different dresses as well.

In 2022, Maha el-Saca, a researcher at the Palestinian Heritage Center, explained to Al-Monitor that Palestinians also recognize the cities or villages of women from their dresses.

"The Jaffa dress is embroidered in the form of oranges and the cypress trees that surrounded it, while the Canaanite dress in Jericho had geometric drawings."

According to Marwan Abu Khalaf, a researcher of Palestinian heritage at Inaash Al-Usra Association, Palestinian embroidery was implicitly known to be Palestinian and incorporates "decorations and drawings dating back to the Canaanite era 3,000 years ago."

[sarahjennings]

Possible design layouts for the upcoming degree show.

There are two options, one with a vintage, retro wallpaper inspired by the 'Open House' exhibition from the Whitworth Art Gallery. I think if I were to use the wallpaper the paintings would have to be framed with thick black frames, like the photographs are in the Whitworth exhibition, so that the paintings would not be lost in the busy backdrop. The wallpaper would be more appropriate if there was a larger collection of paintings being shown.

I think the blank background would be a better choice, just as it related more to the photo album theme I am trying to achieve. I also want to have the paintings in pairs around the exhibition, so the white walls would be better to look like the loose pages from a family album. It would also be difficult to have stripes of wallpaper around the rooms.

I want to now begin to choose the final paintings I will include in the Degree show and how they will be arranged.

[mi6021hollysurr]

research for character development and environment design

i want the cupboard to be littered with items the defined the decades that the pair have lived through but also to have some famous stolen or reported missing artefacts in from over the years.

Museum of Natural History Heist (1964)

New York Museum of Natural History, making off with priceless gems, including the 563-carat Star of India sapphire, the 100-carat DeLong Star Ruby and the 116-carat Midnight Star black sapphire.

Fake Cops Loot the Gardner Museum (1990)

Visitors to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston now can only view a framed section of fabric wall where Rembrandt van Rijn's 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee' used to hang. It was one of 13 valuable paintings stolen in a mysterious heist that remains unsolved.

made off with 13 works of art, including paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet.

'The Scream' Goes AWOL, Twice (1994 and 2004)

It’s a good thing the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch created several iterations of his most famous work, “The Scream,” since two of them have fallen into the hands of art thieves. First, in February 1994, burglars scaled a ladder and broke a window of the National Museum in Oslo, stealing its version of the iconic painting. They left behind a note that read, “Thanks for the poor security” and later demanded $1 million in ransom.. In August 2004, two masked robbers entered Oslo’s Munch Museum, holding tourists and employees at gunpoint as they tore another version of “The Scream” as well as Munch’s painting “The Madonna” off the wall.

Sweden’s National Museum Loses Two Renoirs and a Rembrandt (2000)

the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm. filched two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and one by Rembrandt. Meanwhile,

Whitworth Art Gallery Treasures Wind Up Behind the Loo (2003)

Three paintings by Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, collectively worth an estimated $1.6 million at the time, spent a rainy night behind a boarded-up outdoor public bathroom after vanishing from the nearby Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, England on April 26, 2003.

Bogus Tourists Lift 'Madonna of the Yarnwinder' (2003)

In August 2003, two thieves posing as tourists plucked the “Madonna of the Yarnwinder,” (1501), a Renaissance masterpiece believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci and worth tens of millions of dollars, off a wall of Scotland’s Drumlanrig Castle,

tuckers cross (1975) -

made off with 13 works of art, including paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet.

Antwerp diamond heist (2003)-

Diamonds, gold and other jewels worth $189 million. Dubbed the "heist of the century".

After doing some research i think I'm going to use tuckers cross, the two renoirs and a renbrant stolen from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, both scream paintings and Rembrandt van Rijn's 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee' from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston with the peice of cloth missing.

whilst taking to class mates, they suggested i add other missing artifacts like the sphinx nose.

i might also include some items that aren't reported stolen or missing to suggest that they've been replaced with a fake.

[ukdamo]

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits: 

Cold, Dark Matter - Exploded View - by Cornelia Parker.

At the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

[skipieohhhhh]

Hughie O'Donoghue

Born in Manchester, Hughie O’Donoghue now lives and works in rural Ireland. O’Donoghue has internationally since 1982 and is considered one of the leading painters of his generation. His work is represented in public collections, including the National Gallery, London, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and the Arts Council of England. The solo exhibition ‘Hughie O’Donoghue: Recent Paintings and Selected Works from the American Ireland Fund Donation’ was held at IMMA in 2009

Laocoon, 2003

Medium: Oil on linen canvas in 3 panels

Dimensions: Unframed, 305 x 468 cm 

O’Donoghue uses figuration and abstraction to explore themes of human identity, memory, and experience; and draws on history, mythology, and personal records to create works that resonate with emotional intensity.

Fallen Elm (Kilfane) Oil on board, 71 x 122cm (28 x 48") Signed, inscribed and dated 2007/'8 verso

Evening Kilfane, Co. Kilkenny Oil on canvas, 68 x 104cm (26¾ x 41") Signed; signed inscribed and dated 2007 verso

His work is abstract in style, presenting the human body as distorted and blurred forms, drawn in thick and heavy brushstrokes. He often applies numerous layers of paint, or includes photographs or documentary sources within the canvas, covered in more paint.

 The surfaces of his canvas are full of texture, in which the material takes paramount importance

This process of layering reflects O'Donoghue's interest in engaging with historical narratives, often personal in nature, so that he can express the serial form of experience and memory.  

"painting is archaeology in reverse"

“The colours in my paintings are also intense, but in my work there’s never only one reason for why something is the way it is. I suppose I deliberately court the intensity of colour to mirror the intensity of feeling that comes with memory.

fascinated by the passing of time

For him, painting is a form of both archaeology and remembrance

[9sr3lii]

Indoor Gossip Cairo, 1873, by John Frederick Lewis Pencil, watercolor, bodycolor and gum Arabic on paper, 30.5 x 20.3 cm, Current location: The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, UK.