This Is Tomorrow

This Is Tomorrow was a seminal art exhibition in August 1956 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery on High Street in London, UK, facilitated by curator Bryan Robertson. The core of the exhibition was the ICA Independent Group.

This is Tomorrow was a seminal collaborative art exhibition that opened at the Whitechapel Art Gallery on August 9, 1956 and featured 12 exhibits within the show that featured collaborations between a variety of architects, painters, sculptors, and other artists. While each using their own style, they built pieces that represented their version of contemporary art. The result of the twelve groups was the attempt to evoke a variety of external environment through theories that were inspired by communications guru Marshall McLuhan, as well as symbols of pop culture. This is Tomorrow was nearly two years in the making, after architect and art critic Theo Crosby came up with the idea of mounting a large scale collaborative show at Whitechapel Gallery. By 1955 the participants were roughly divided into two camps; Constructivist, and the Independent Group, known for their meetings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London with some overlap between the two groups. The 12 exhibits were each produced separately and were independent of each other. After This is Tomorrow opened nearly a thousand people a day saw the exhibit. The catalogue for the exhibit, designed by Independent member and graphic designer Edward Wright cost five shillings, a high price for 1956, sold out and had to be reprinted. This is Tomorrow is considered to be the forerunner of the British Pop Art movement.

Crosby writes on June 8, 1955 that the discussions… are really the point of the collaboration… the exhibition will not be a collection of miscellaneous art works. The This Is Tomorrow exhibition included artists, architects, musicians and graphic designers working together in 12 teams — referred to as "groups" — an example of multi-disciplinary collaboration that was still unusual. Each group took as their starting point the human senses and the theme of habitation. Each group worked independently but saw the final display as one environment. In highlights from a 1979 documentary by the architectural critic Reyner Banham, artists and architects who were involved recall the sense of excitement they felt over the collaborations; the constraints of cost - only £50 was assigned to each group for materials; and their sense of the importance of the show within the context of the establishment they opposed. This is Tomorrow is viewed as a groundbreaking exhibition because of the issues it addressed early that later became crucial in contemporary art, not simply the process of collaborative action, but the whole notion of creating an environment inside the art gallery. The ripples of influence it created 50 years ago are still being felt today.

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