Transient Spaces: two new large-scale sculptures. Over the last twenty years, Rachel Whiteread has transformed ordinary domestic objects and architectural spaces into poetic sculptures that explore the relationship between memory, architecture, and the body; and the private and public realm.
Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces, an exhibition of two new sculptures by
British artist Rachel Whiteread, opens at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
on March 8, 2002. The works, Untitled (Basement) (2001), and Untitled
(Apartment) (2001), which were commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim
Berlin and exhibited there last fall, were cast from the artist's new home and
studio. The two sculptures articulate the artist's preoccupation with
architecture as a reflection of personal memory and history and as a means to
address larger social forces. The exhibition will be on view through June 5,
2002.
"We are extremely proud to present these monumental new works by Rachel
Whiteread," noted director Thomas Krens. "Rachel is one of the most
formidable sculptors of our time. Her unique approach to the discipline is clear
in these pieces, which possess an intense physical presence and communicate
a deep sense of humanity."
The exhibition was organized by Lisa Dennison, Deputy Director and Chief
Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The exhibition will be
installed in the museum's seventh-floor Annex gallery.
Over the last twenty years, Rachel Whiteread has transformed ordinary
domestic objects and architectural spaces into poetic sculptures that explore
the relationship between memory, architecture, and the body; and the private
and public realm. In the late 1980s, Whiteread began making sculptures by
casting household fixtures and furniture, including wardrobes, beds, sinks, and
baths, to create pieces which emphasize the private aspects of domestic life
and reflect the human body in symbolic terms. Using such industrial materials
as plaster, concrete, rubber, and polystyrene, Whiteread typically casts the
space underneath, around, or inside the objects, creating negative impressions
of the items she works with. These forms record the shape and surface of the
original objects in detail, but not their physical presence, often invoking in the
viewer a sense of remembrance and feelings of absence and loss.
Over time, Whiteread expanded the scope of her program to include casts of
larger architectonic spaces. In 1993, the artist created her first public
sculpture, entitled House. The work, an off-white concrete cast of the interior
spaces in a Victorian working-class home, appeared as a phantom of the
original building and drew attention to the consequences of gentrification in
East London occurring at the time. In October 2000, Whiteread unveiled the
Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, a commemoration to the 65,000 Austrian Jews
who were killed during World War II. This monolithic project (an impenetrable,
inside-out library) alludes to Nazi book burnings, and to the concept of the
"people of the book."
The two new large-scale sculptures presented in Rachel Whiteread: Transient
Spaces were created from a London building that, over time, has had various
functions, operating as a synagogue, a textile merchant's warehouse, and
presently, as Whiteread's residence and studio. With their smooth,
unadulterated surfaces, both works embody the generic nature of much
postwar architecture and emphasize the simple geometry of the structures
from which they come. Devoid of architectural flourish, Untitled (Apartment)
(2001) is comprised of a series of small, nondescript rooms, suggestive of the
low-income, standardized housing that developed after World War II as Europe
strove to rebuild itself. Untitled (Basement) (2001) is a cast of a staircase
that, by being reoriented on its side, engenders a surprising encounter
between the viewer and this ordinary architectural necessity. Through invoking
the building's history, Whiteread's two sculptures reflect on the aesthetic and
sociological concerns and necessities that shaped post-war Europe.
In the early 1990s, Whiteread began to receive international attention as part
of a stylistically diverse group of artists referred to as the Young British
Artists. She has received such accolades as the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize in
1993 and a medal at the 1997 Venice Biennale. Throughout Europe and the
United States, her work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in
museums and galleries, and she has realized several public art projects. Most
recently, in the summer of 2001, her work was featured in a retrospective at
the Serpentine Gallery in London, and a public sculpture entitled Monument
was unveiled in Trafalgar Square.
The works presented in Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces were created as
part of Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin's ongoing program whereby new works by
contemporary artists are commissioned by and exhibited at the Deutsche
Guggenheim Berlin, and subsequently enter its permanent collection. This
program has made Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin unique within the arts
community. In addition to Whiteread, artists who have created new works as
part of this program include: Jeff Koons, James Rosenquist, Andreas Slominski,
Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bill Viola, and Lawrence Weiner.
Publication:
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by
Lisa Dennison, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Guggenheim Museum, Molly
Nesbit, Associate Professor of Art History at Vassar College, and Beatriz
Colomina, Professor of Architecture and Director of the Program in Media and
Modernity at Princeton University, along with a fictional text by A.M. Holmes
and an interview with the artist by Craig Houser, former Assistant Curator at
the Guggenheim Museum. The volume is published by the Guggenheim and
distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Image: Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Paperbacks), 1997. Room installation, plaster and steel Courtesy of Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London and Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York.
Guggenheim Museum New York, 1071 5th Ave at 89th Street