Gillian Wearing - Whitechapel

Gillian Wearing, Dancing in Peckham, 1994

A retrospective of Gillian Wearing is at the Whitechapel until 17 June.

Wearing is a portraitist - of sorts. This exhibition includes all her best known films and photographs which characteristically explore the gap between appearances, feelings and identity. Her signature work, for example, Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992-93) for which Wearing approached strangers and invited them to pose for a photograph holding a sign saying whatever they wanted... precisely mines that space as does a later video work, Confess all on video. Don't worry, you will be in disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian (1994).

Other notable works include 10-16 (1997) in which the recorded voices of children aged 10-16 are lipsynched by adult actors; 2 into 1 (1997) in which a mother and her twin sons talk about each other in the others' voices.

More recent work includes a series of self-portraits as members of her family, her younger self and and selected photography 'greats' - Warhol, Arbus, Mapplethorpe. 
My favourite of her works is Dancing in Peckham (1994), a film of Wearing, herself, dancing, alone, in a shopping mall in Peckham to the music inside her head.

Read reviews by Adrian Searle,  Laura Cumming, Alastair Sooke and an interview with Tim Adams.
Watch an introductory video on the Whitechapel website, Dancing in Peckham, an extract from 2 into 1.

Gillian Wearing, Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say, 1992-93

Gillian Wearing, still from 2 into 1, 1997

Gillian Wearing, Self-Portrait aged 17, 2003