Whitworth Art Gallery

England has modern art museums e.g. The Hepworth, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Tate Modern. Next to these, The Whitworth art gallery is quietly international. It’s set in the corner of a tiny park. In a building with millions of pounds of rebuild—won awards and all that. Tree‐height view across the park from the raised cafe. Also, huge, flexible presentation spaces. Sound‐effects aside, perhaps the quietest experience in Manchester. Mostly for media art—tapestries, sound installations, decorated objects and the like. As reference points, the curators have and sometimes scatter items like Hogarth, Turner, Van Goth, Munch… Depths in the archives are wallpaper, cloth and watercolors; which sometimes come on show. For everyone else, The Whitworth is strange—inside an English building this length of space is rare. And the curation is explicitly preachy and self‐rightous—university influence? Averagely popular, in a family way—the park has a playground. You’ll need to be the kind of person who wants to engage with the art‐world‐now, or who wants for coffee with a view but, if you are, you’ll go.