Exhibitions, Literature Live

A Rubbish Night at the Museum

10:00 19 April - 17:00 5 May 2018
If you care about the rubbish in the streets of Greater Manchester, come along and see an exhibition of nearly 100 displays by artists, photographers, researchers, companies, community…

Alison Wilding

16 February - 12 August 2018
Turner Prize nominee and Royal Academician Alison Wilding presents works spanning the past 20 years of her career. This new show at the Whitworth will comprise of three major sculptures,…

Apna: Ours Yours Everybody’s

3 February - 13 May 2018
Apna is a word used in many languages across South Asia meaning ‘ours, yours or everybody’s’. This reflects how the Whitworth shares the collection that is housed here. In the Collections…

Beyond Borders

20 May 2017 - 3 June 2018
Beyond Borders, explores South Asian textiles bringing together four artists working on issues around post-colonial identity, ruptured spaces, authenticity, displacement and belonging.…

Cozens and Cozens

16 June 2017 - 24 June 2018
Father and son, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, were influential watercolour painters of the 18th century. Alexander was a drawing master who dedicated his career to teaching young…

Exchanges

24 March 2018 - 2 February 2020
Exchanges sets art and artists together, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in opposition – always with insight and intention. In this evolving exhibition, art that has recently been…

In the Land

27 January - 4 November 2018
Rethinking the form, texture and space of the natural landscape. This exhibition looks back at a period of intense experimentation in British painting and sculpture where artists,…

Isaac Julien: Ten Thousand Waves

30 March - 28 August 2018
Ten Thousand Waves is the most recent in a series of major moving image acquisitions by the Whitworth and was supported through Art Fund’s Moving Image Fund. Rooted in the Morecambe…

John Stezaker

1 December 2017 - 24 June 2018
Using vintage photographs, old film stills, postcards and book illustrations, John Stezaker makes collages that subvert their original imagery, creating unique and compelling works…

Nature Through Roman Eyes

10:00 6 April - 17:00 30 October 2018
Nature Through Roman Eyes is inspired by the work of Roman writer Pliny the Elder. His Natural History – a 37 book encyclopaedia of the ancient world - covers every subject from astronomy…

Literature Live: Jesmyn Ward

19:00 - 21:00 27 April 2018
Manchester Literature Festival are thrilled to present a rare UK event with acclaimed American author Jesmyn Ward. Based in Mississippi, Jesmyn is the author of the memoir Men We Reaped…

The White Review

19:00 - 20:30 30 April 2018
The White Review’s editors Željka Maroševic and Francesca Wade introduce an evening of readings from recent contributors to the literary magazine described by Deborah Levy as ‘nothing…

Bodies of Colour: Breaking With Stereotypes in the Wallpaper Collection

4 May 2018 - 28 April 2019
This latest exhibition uses the Whitworth’s extensive and significant wallpaper collection to focus on how Imperial attitudes to people are reflected in wallpaper. The wallpapers in…

Still Spirits

18 May - 30 June 2018
Drawings by artist EJ Lance of the cephalopod (octopus and squid) spirit collection in the Study.

The Art of Volunteering

25 May - 23 September 2018
Our volunteers take over the Collections Centre with The Art of Volunteering, a project which explores the breadth of the Whitworth's collections, of over 60,000 works. The exhibition…

Power to the People: Manchester Stands Up!

14:00 - 16:00 7 June 2018
Join us to discover items from our collection of those who wanted change; from Peterloo to the Suffragettes. Free, no need to book, just drop in. Suitable for 14 yrs and above.Power to the People: Manchester Stands Up!

Four Corners of One Cloth: Textiles from the Islamic World

23 June 2018 - 3 November 2019
A section of a Kiswa will form the heart of the exhibition. The Kiswa cloth covers the Ka’bah and is replaced each year during Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Positioned in the direction…

Prints of Darkness: Goya and Hogarth in a Time of European Turmoil

7 July 2018 - 4 August 2019
Francesco José de Goya Lucientes (1746-1828) and William Hogarth (1647-1764) were the most remarkable artists of their times. Both were famous painters, but their most compelling works…

Alice Kettle: Thread Bearing Witness

1 September 2018 - 24 February 2019
From the Barberini Tapestries to the Bayeux Tapestry, monumental textiles in the form of large-scale narrative embroideries, weaving and tapestries have been used to illustrate contemporary…

William Kentridge: Thick Time

21 September 2018 - 3 March 2019
South African artist William Kentridge weaves together global histories of revolution, exile and utopian aspirations, exploring how they are shaped by the creative forces of memory…

Beth Underdown: Love makes as many

17:30 - 19:00 6 October 2018
1918, and some women in England have gained the right to vote. A few short weeks before the armistice, the shortage of cotton has brought a strange hush to Quarry Bank mill and the…

We are 11: Stanley Grove Primary Academy

6 October 2018 - 5 January 2019
This exhibition has been boldly curated by the children of Stanley Grove Primary Academy. Over the past year, 11 lead curators have selected works from the Whitworth’s collection that…

Literature Live: Maura Dooley and Finuala Dowling

19:30 - 21:00 8 October 2018
Join us for an evening of witty, compassionate and thought-provoking poetry. South African poet Finuala Dowling, well regarded as an inventive sketcher of the domestic sublime, performs…

A Celebration of Muriel Spark: with Jackie Kay, Alan Taylor and Louise Welsh

19:30 - 20:45 9 October 2018
Muriel Spark chronicled human interaction with a scalpel and razor-sharp insight. Her writing examines the aspects of our lives we try to hide, the affect stories have on the way we…

Mohammed Hanif in Conversation

19:00 - 21:00 10 October 2018
Q: What do an American pilot who’s crashed in the desert, a teenager full of money-making schemes and a dog suffering through a very bad day have in common? A: They all narrate the…

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