Research – Rachel Whiteread

This post forms part of my initial research for my project proposal.

Rachel Whiteread came to my attention mainly for the piece House (1993) where she had cast the interior of a house in concrete prior to it being demolished. This spoke very much of memory and history of the many people who had lived and visited the house when it was alive. It appears to me very much like a sarcophagus a tomb filled with memories and lifetimes that will only be remembered through this installation.

The piece Ghost (1990) where Whiteread sculpted the inside of a bedsit in London was the precursor to this work and in essence a smaller scale first attempt at the process.

Exposing the perpetual space around us, her work speaks of the disregarded small expanses of our daily lives that invoke memory and recollection inside the buildings and architecture.

What I was inspired by in this work is the concept of casting the space, not so much exterior but the interior and the previously inhabited space. The concept that there are signs of human life all around us and conspicuous in the spaces that we inhabit and while we may look no further than the objects that inhabit the space, the space itself has its own story to tell.

Bibliography

Artangel.org.uk (n.d.). House. [online] Artangel.org.uk. Available at: https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/house/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].

Chadason, K. (2012). Negataive Space with Rachel Whiteread. [online] Trendland Online Magazine Curating the Web since 2006. Available at: https://trendland.com/negative-space-with-rachel-whiteread/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].

Cohen, A. (2018). When Rachel Whiteread Turned an Entire House into a Concrete Sculpture. [online] Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rachel-whitereads-house-unlivable-controversial-unforgettable [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].

Sharpe, E. (2018). Rachel Whiteread’s breakthrough work Ghost gets complex conservation treatment. [online] Theartnewspaper.com. Available at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/rachel-whiteread-s-ghost-given-new-lease-of-life-by-cross-discipline-team [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].

Tate (n.d.). Rachel Whiteread: EMBANKMENT: About | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibitionseries/unilever-series/unilever-series-rachel-whiteread-embankment-0 [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].

Tate (n.d.). Five Things to Know: Rachel Whiteread – List | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rachel-whiteread-2319/five-things-know-rachel-whiteread [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].

Ward-Aldam, D. (2013). Ghost House: 20 years since Rachel Whiteread’s ‘House’ | Apollo Magazine. [online] Apollo Magazine. Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/house/ [Accessed 25 Oct. 2018].