chisenhale.org.uk Chisenhale Gallery was founded by artists. The same Chisenhale gallery experimental vision and spirit of possibility that changed an empty veneer factory and brewery warehouse into an art believes in artists gallery guides our work today. We commission and produce contemporary art, supporting international and UK-based artists to make their most ambitious work to date by pursuing new directions in their practices. We are committed to our audiences having access to the energy and ideas of an ever- expanding artist community. Chisenhale Gallery has an award-winning, 38-year history as one of London’s most innovative forums for art production and presentation. With a reputation for identifying new artistic talent, we believe in making cultural impact through working with artists. We develop ideas with artists over a one-to-two year incubation period, from concept to completion. Located in a dynamic and creative residential neighbourhood in the heart of London’s East End, where many cultures converge, Chisenhale Gallery is an evolving space for experimentation, transformed by each artist’s commission. Chisenhale Gallery is a registered charity, part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio. The gallery fundraises for the programme in its entirety, as well as for more than half of all core costs, through trusts, foundations and individual donations. All of our exhibitions are free. Cover image Installation view of Thao Nguyen Phan’s exhibition, Becoming Alluvium, 2020. Photo: Andy Keate. Left Opening of Banu Cennetoğlu’s exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery, 2018. Photo: Mark Blower. “Chisenhale Gallery is really a space that allows an artist to go to another level of their practice or step out of it and renew it.” Camille Henrot, Artist “Chisenhale is the showing space every artist wants to work with, the freedom to take risks in a place which pushes you to your creative and intellectual limits in conversation with audiences who are eager to be stretched is priceless.” Lubaina Himid, Artist “It is this refusal to compromise that makes Chisenhale such a provocative and generous workspace. Chisenhale is staunchly invested in the idea of a non-exclusive public space, a determined path towards collectivity and freedom. To know that the conversations and friendships that cemented around my own commission are still cherished parts of my daily life, is a continuation of the simple fact that Chisenhale Above Installation view of is an inimitable space.” Camille Henrot’s exhibition, The Pale Fox, 2014. Helen Marten, Artist and Chisenhale Gallery Trustee Photo: Andy Keate. Chisenhale Gallery creates exciting works of art We bring artworks into being. Many of the artists that have come to define the late 1980s through to our present moment have had breakthrough exhibitions commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery. The resulting artworks go on to be exhibited and collected by significant institutions worldwide. Our process starts when we identify an exciting artist to work with, who often has not exhibited in London. We hold conversations and studio visits so that we get to know artists’ practices in depth. We listen to their ideas, ambitions and hopes. Working collaboratively towards the creation of new work, every commission is a process of discovery, asking how something can be realised that hasn’t existed before. The gallery is reinvented with each exhibition; adapted for every artist’s needs. The range of enquiry presented means we are working simultaneously on realising film production, live performance, sculptural and sound installation, or exploring new directions in painting and photography. Artists working with Chisenhale Gallery address the most important questions of our contemporary moment. In recent years, these have included: access and public space; re-imagining Black presence in painting; and listening as a form of asking who among us gets to be heard. The 2021 Commissions Programme comprises three solo exhibitions by artists Yu Ji, Abbas Akhavan and Rindon Johnson. Working within and beyond the walls of the gallery, the artists each address urgent issues about individual responsibility in our natural and built environments. Above Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Greenfinch, 2012. Photo: Marcus Leith. “Being invited to present a solo exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery developed and pushed my practice in unprecedented ways. Unlike other commissions, this one felt made-to-measure. Everything started with the art and my vision for the show.” Paul Maheke, Artist and Chisenhale Gallery Trustee Left Opening of Paul Maheke’s exhibition, A fire circle for a public hearing, 2018. Photo: Mark Blower. Installation view of Anthea Hamilton’s exhibition, Gymnasium, 2009. LEGACY: the artists’ art gallery Chisenhale Gallery is where artists come to see and support the work of their peers, mentors and friends. Influential group shows at Chisenhale Gallery include Yellow Peril: New World Asians and Essential Black Art, which featured artists Rasheed Araeen, Sonia Boyce and Mona Hatoum, among others. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the gallery produced the first solo exhibitions in the UK with Lubaina Himid, Rachel Whiteread, Cornelia Parker, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The gallery has commissioned major new works by artists including Faisal Abdu’Allah and David Adjaye, Anthea Hamilton, Hito Steyerl, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Ed Atkins, Helen Marten, and Camille Henrot. More recently, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ima-Abasi Okon, Imran Perretta and Thao Nguyen Phan have all produced critically acclaimed commissions with Chisenhale Gallery. Artists participating in the recent programme have been awarded or nominated for the Turner Prize, the Deutsche In 1991, Cornelia Parker’s explosive Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Future Generation Art sculpture laid bare the extraordinary Prize and the Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard. Chisenhale nature of a frozen moment. alumni have also participated in major international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, New Museum Triennial, Liverpool Biennial and documenta. Above Installation view of Cornelia Parker’s exhibition, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991. Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery. Photo: Hugo Glendinning. Wolfgang Tillmans staged a version of the world he wanted to live in through previously unseen new photography in 1997. Right Wolfgang Tillmans, Kate, sitting, 1997. Courtesy of the artist. PARTNERSHIPS Partnerships enable Chisenhale’s production of ambitious projects. Through our unique commissioning model, we create strategic collaborations with UK and international institutions to share resources. Artworks commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery reach up to 1,000,000 people annually through international circulation and public exhibitions. Commissioning and production partners include: Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis; Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; EMPAC, New York; Spike Island, Bristol; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; The Whitworth, University of Manchester; Void, Derry~Londonderry; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; BBC Arts; Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona; WIELS, Brussels; and SculptureCenter, New York. Chisenhale Gallery is a founding member of Common Practice, London, an advocacy group for the contemporary visual arts sector in the capital. Chisenhale Gallery is also a member of Plus Tate, a network of museums and galleries across the UK, set up to strengthen the contemporary visual arts ecology by sharing knowledge. Right Imran Perretta on set with cast and crew during filming of the destructors, 2019. Photo: Lenka Rayn H. Above The List of 34,361 documented deaths of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants who have lost their lives “The seeding ground of bright young artists.” within or on the borders of Europe since 1993. Documentation as of 5 May Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian 2018 by UNITED for Intercultural Action. Facilitated by Banu Cennetoğlu. This edition of The List was produced by Chisenhale Gallery and Liverpool Biennial. Presented at Great George Street, Liverpool Biennial 2018. Photo: Mark McNulty. Installation view of Faisal Abdu’Allah’s exhibition, The Garden of Eden, 2003. Produced in collaboration with David Adjaye. “It was a true privilege to work so intimately with an intellectually rigorous team with a rare level of personal investment beyond the commission, which I will treasure.” Mandy El-Sayegh, Artist “Working with Chisenhale Gallery has been an amazing, formative experience and I will forever be grateful for their support in helping me to realise my most challenging and ambitious moving image work to date. The level of mutual trust, care and communication Above Installation view of Mandy El-Sayegh’s exhibition, over the course of my two year commission allowed me Cite Your Sources, 2019. to really push the scope of my work and gave me the Photo: Andy Keate. confidence to take risks, achieving something I couldn’t Right Installation view of Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s have imagined at the start of the journey.” exhibition, Earwitness Theatre, 2018. Photo: Andy Keate. Imran Perretta, Artist A neighbourhood gallery with an international reach Chisenhale Gallery initiates a broad range of activities in tandem with each new exhibition, including artist talks and community partnerships. Every exhibition allows us to share free resources such as interviews with the commissioned artists and a recommended list of related books, articles and films to read, listen or watch. All