Following a £15 million development that doubled its size and created new spaces for celebrating art and “embracing the park it calls home,” The Whitworth in Manchester will reopen its doors to the public on February the 14th. After checking out the gallery’s new digs and all the ace art on view there earlier this week at a press preview, I reckon Mancunian art lovers should prepare for a very happy Valentine’s weekend!
The highlights of my visit were many, but chief among them was the Cornelia Parker exhibition, the biggest solo show of this important British artist to date. Getting up close to her signature piece Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View alongside two new commissions and a variety of her other works was a thrill. Indeed, I couldn’t get enough of Cold Dark Matter or her The Distance (A Kiss with String Attached) (August Rodin’s The Kiss with a mile of string wrapped round it).
Seeing a sort of “greatest hits” show of work by Sarah Lucas – an exhibition the gallery aims to be “funny, challenging and striking in equal measure” and one replete with walls adorned with Lucas’ Tits in Space wallpaper – was a treat for me as well.” Cai Guo-Qiang’s ginormous gunpowder drawing, Unmanned Nature, inspired (despite it’s reflection pool having not yet been filled for the press date) while Thomas Schutte’s Low Tide Wandering series of prints from etchings had me returning to it a few times during my visit to contemplate his musings and observations.
The gallery itself was a delight to behold. I was impressed with its massive new windows and how they allowed the building and its park surrounding to play off one another, bringing the outside in and (perhaps more impressively) vice versa. This was my first time in Manchester (not to be the last!), it was explained to a number of times by local folks at the preview that the green views of Whitworth Park were precious and atypical in this town.
Of course just getting to scope the gallery’s eclectic and extensive permanent collection of historical and contemporary fine art (LOVED the William Blake watercolours), textiles and wallpapers was an absolute pleasure on its own that I reckon would could merit a trip up from London on its own.
The Whitworth is located at Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER. There’s a host of events taking place at the gallery over this weekend along with a full roster of talks, activities and more line up for months to come. Find out more at whitworth.manchester.ac.uk.
