It opened on 27 September 2018 and will run through to 13 January 2019.
Elmgreen & Dragset, Pregnant White Maid, 2017 (detail). Courtesy of Galerie Perrotin. Photo: Elmar Vestner.
The exhibition offers a witty, melancholic and evocative overview of the Scandinavian artists’ 20-year-long collaboration. The statement made by the enormous, dusty swimming pool is complemented by the dubiously plumbed urinals and doors that cannot be opened.
Gay Marriage, Elmgreen & Dragset, 2017. Photograph: Matthias Kolb. Courtesy of the artists and Whitechapel Gallery.
The exhibition culminates in a display of figurative sculptures which seemingly represent icons in their chapel-like locale. Suffice it to say that the exploration of social and sexual politics and power structures that has been pervasive in their past collaborations has carried over to these new additions to their oeuvre.
The artists feel that ‘This is How We Bite Our Tongue’ is an exhibition about emotions held inside, not said out loud. It is about withdrawal and resignation, about absence and impermanence, the feeling of loss, of losing agency as well as community. But it is also about reconciliation and resilience”.
Too Heavy, Elmgreen & Dragset, 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Whitechapel Gallery
