COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0005016
image_record_id
aahi0005016
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Untitled (Upstairs)
Image Title:
installation view
Image Date (display):
2009-09-08
Work Creator (display):
Rachel Whiteread (English, born 1963)
Work Creator gender:
female
work_creator_or_agent_gender
female
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
English sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker. She studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic (19825) and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art (19857). Employing traditional casting methods and materials that are commonly used in the preparation of sculptures rather than for the finished object, such as plaster, rubber and resin, she makes sculptures of the spaces in, under and on everyday objects. Her art operates on many levels: it captures and gives materiality to the sometimes unfamiliar spaces of familiar life (bath, sink, mattress or chair), transforming the domestic into the public; it fossilizes everyday objects in the absence of human usage; and it allows those objects to stand anthropomorphically for human beings themselves. Her practice borrows formally from Minimalism and intellectually from conceptual art, displaying impersonal, austere and mass-produced objects as transformed and personalized through use, so that the viewer may revisit the objects and emotions of the quotidian world. Whiteread's choice of subject-matter reflects an awareness of the intrinsically human-scaled design of the objects with which we surround ourselves and exploits the severing of this connection, by removal of the object's function, to express absence and loss. Her early work allowed autobiographical elements: Shallow Breath (1988) is a cast of the space beneath a bed, similar to the one in which the artist was born. A seemingly Minimalist piece, it contains evidence of the detritus of the human corporeal occupation of the real object in the somewhat unsavoury adherence of dust to the plaster surface. Ghost (1990; London, Saatchi Gal.) is a plaster cast of the space of a North London living room, similar to that in which the artist grew up. The window frames, fireplace, door and light switches are preserved in functionless form in the plaster, creating a perfect negative imprint of an interior that, paradoxically, shuts the viewer out. Whiteread has described the work as 'mummifying the sense of silence in the room'. Later works move towards the expression of a universal human position, and their titles become correspondingly more prosaic. Untitled (Amber Bed) (1991; Nîmes, Carré A.) is formally close enough to the original object that it could fulfil its original function, while its bent form also evokes the pitifulness of a slumped human figure. Whiteread is one of the few artists of her generation to have produced monumental public sculptures. In 1993 she was awarded the Turner Prize just after creating House (1993; destr. 1994, see House) a life-sized replica of the interior of a condemned terraced house in London's East End made by spraying liquid concrete into the building's empty shell before its external walls were removed. House was a monument to lost domestic space and to a whole way of life, evoking the former occupants through their very absence and through the entombment of the space. Its controversial creation and destruction made it a focus for public debate about the role of contemporary art. Similar ideas and controversy underlie the Holocaust memorial for the Judenplatz in Vienna, one of the most prestigious sculptural commissions in Europe in the 1990s. Whiteread's winning proposal, which was finally unveiled in October 2000 after considerable political wranglings, involved placing the cast interior of a library in the centre of the square. It combined an impression of the pages of books, rather than their spines, and the space that remains between them and the backs of the shelves, together with the impenetrable library doors in relief. It draws powerfully on the idea of the Jewish race as the 'people of the book', and recalls Israel's decision to remember the victims of the Holocaust by donations of books to libraries. Whiteread represented Britain at the 1997 Venice Biennale. (Octavia Nicholson. "Whiteread, Rachel." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 18 Mar. 2009 )
Work Style Period:
21st century
work_styleperiod
21st century
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Contemporary
work_styleperiod
Contemporary
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
emotions
subject
emotions
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
synagogues
subject
synagogues
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
space (composition concept)
subject
space (composition concept)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
religion (discipline)
subject
religion (discipline)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
time
subject
time
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
stairs
subject
stairs
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
houses
subject
houses
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
memory
subject
memory
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
architecture (discipline)
subject
architecture (discipline)
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
sculpture (visual works)
work_type
sculpture (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
sculptures and installations
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
sculptures and installations
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
white robust plasticized plaster, mixed media
Work Measurements (display):
550 cm x 330 cm x 570 cm
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
Venice Biennale
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
exhibition
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Venice, Italy
Image Source Reproduction citation:
The Experience if Art, Biennale di Venezia, 2005, Volume I
image_source_copy_from_print_name
The Experience if Art, Biennale di Venezia, 2005, Volume I
Image Source Reproduction citation
false
Image Source Reproduction refid:
0-8478-2745-3
Image Source Reproduction page number:
246
Image Source Reproduction refid type:
ISBN
Image Rights (display):
© Rachel Whiteread
Image Rights fair use checklist:
1) use of this image is for education and educational research; 2) access is restricted to University of Colorado and Auraria Higher Education Center communities; 3) the original photographer is credited if known; 4) the image is published; 5) the amount of the work in relation to the whole is needed for education or educational research; 6) the number of derivatives is the minimum required for education or educational research; 7) the image has not been found to be reasonably available for sale; 8) duplication of the image does not violate preexisting contracts.
Work Rights (display):
© Rachel Whiteread
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Collection
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see