West Building Rachel Whiteread and the Ghost(s) of Christmas Past Rachel Whitereads 2002 work Untitled (Domestic) at the National Gallery of Art. When I applied for postgrad, I had applied to one school for painting and the other for sculpture. Having located a house, Whiteread began the painstaking process of filling an entire room with plaster. September 16 at 2:00 p.m. The National Gallery of Art Library was founded in 1941, the year the Gallery opened to the public. Torso embodies the interior of a hot-water bottle; Mantle casts the space directly below and outlined by a dressing table; Shallow Breath presents a space below a bed; and Closet makes physical the interior space of a wardrobe. Rachel Whiteread - Artist - Saatchi Gallery Untitled (House) forced the viewer into an uncomfortable relation with architecture; by turning the house apparently inside out, the viewer is psychologically placed both inside and outside the building, evoking simultaneous feelings of inclusion and marginalization. Bottom right, Untitled (Yellow Bath). Middle: Untitled (double amber bed). For Untitled (Paperbacks), in the background, the artist cast the negative space of library shelves. Her early casts also had a social orientation that, it seems to me, gets far too little attention. This is exactly what the sculptures made by Rachel Whiteread strive to achieve. Her Read allAn intimate portrait of British sculptor Rachel Whiteread as she unpacks her life's work for a major retrospective at Tate Britain in London. In a recent conservation treatment undertaken in partnership with Whiteread, an interdisciplinary team of conservators, curators, mount-makers, engineers, and designers strengthened the structural integrity of Ghost, focusing both on the armature and on each individual panel. Rachel Whiteread, Ghost, Ghost II, 2009. We bought a weird building that had been empty for years, and it took people like us to work out a way of living there.". An intimate portrait of British sculptor Rachel Whiteread as she unpacks her life's work for a major retrospective at Tate Britain in London. Theres no top, but Whiteread specifies that exhibition spaces must place Ghost in locations where viewers are unable peer inside from above. Rachel Whiteread In Whiteread's words, Ghost causes the "viewer to become the wall." Courtesy the artist 1 of 4 She slathered the walls, the doors and the sooty fireplace with plaster of Paris, then reassembled the dozens of resultant panels facing out, not in into a hulking box. Rachel Whiteread: Ghost - YouTube Her Wall (Apex) (2017) corresponds to the artist's latest commissionFlat Pack House (2017), for the new United States Embassy in London. anchor Artist Rachel Whiteread creates two "ghost" cabins in the desert outside of Los Angeles By Nicholas Korody Jul 25, '17 12:15 PM EST Photography by Iwan Baan for WSJ. "Imagine" Rachel Whiteread: Ghost in the Room (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb Photo by Joe Humphrys. This exhibition, however, encourages us to do just that: to pay close attention to and explore the dissonance between what appears to be and what actually is. Whiteread chose to cast books of the same height, endowing them with an association to the encyclopaedic and bureaucratic, lending the work allegiances to the Nazis' obsession with bureaucratic procedures and record-keeping. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The librarys walls are cast as negatives and face outward, as in Ghost. But its books are cast traditionally, so that the books edges protrude from the walls as inaccessible records of crime, or else as last possessions of the murdered readers themselves. After school, Whiteread studied fine art on a foundation course and then painting at Brighton Polytechnic. Set in a gallery against a row of windows, a free-standing, white plaster cube, nearly reaching the ceiling, angles back and away from us slightly to our right. Whiteread, who was nominated for the Turner Prize for her 1990 sculpture Ghost, was approached by James Lingwood of Artangel to collaborate on a project. She also demonstrates how everyday objects can be imbued with power and significance through simple acts and small changes of material, color, or scale. Earlier this year, I stood in front of the Vienna memorial, not another soul on the Judenplatz in the dead of midwinter. What Are Rachel Whiteread's Most Famous Sculptures? - TheCollector Organized by the National Gallery of Art Library, this installation is curated by Paige Rozanski, curatorial associate, department of modern art, National Gallery of Art, and Yuri Long, rare book librarian, National Gallery of Art. Keynote by Mari Lending, professor of form, theory, and history, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Her mother was an artist and her father a Geography lecturer and Polytechnic administrator. In 1990, at the age of 27, Rachel Whiteread made Ghost, her breakthrough work, by casting in plaster the interior of a Victorian living room at 486 Archway Road in North London. overall: 269 x 355.5 x 317.5 cm (105 7/8 x 139 15/16 x 125 in. Follow this link to view the complete list. . In 1979 the completion of a new seven-story facility in the Gallery's East Building and the establishment of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) allowed the library to broaden the purpose and scope of its collection. In conjunction with the exhibition Rachel Whiteread, the National Gallery of Art Library presents an installation of materials relating to Rachel Whiteread's sculpture Ghost (1990). Whiteread has said of this sculpture that she was trying to "mummify the air in the room," hence the title. Books face outward, as inaccessible records of crime, or else as last possessions of the murdered readers, our critic writes. ), Her greatest work remains her Vienna Holocaust memorial, which she completed in 2000, after years of bureaucratic delays, and which this show represents through a maquette. Magazine Rachel Whiteread is known for her architecturally-relevant art practice, in particular her casts of the inside of buildings. "Imagine" Rachel Whiteread: Ghost in the Room (TV Episode 2017) - IMDb Although it was on view for only 80 days, House made Whiteread the first woman and the youngest artist to receive the coveted Turner Prize. The house where Rachel Whiteread cast Ghostsimilar in appearance to the North London house where she grew upsits along the A1, the major northbound thoroughfare out of London, and was left empty in the late 1980s when a project to widen the roadway called for its demolition. Isabella Bulkeley, (202) 842-6864 or [emailprotected]. All Rights Reserved, RW: Rachel Whiteread (Tate Modern Artists), Artist Rachel Whiteread Talks to Simon Schama ($), Rachel Whiteread: "It's my mission to make things more complicated", Documentary: Rachel Whiteread, House (1993), Rachel Whiteread: "A memorial needs to be visible but not screaming", Rachel Whiteread on her Tate Britain Show. Her ambition was to create a negative plaster cast of an entire room in a house and she took the opportunity of a solo show at London's Chisenhale Gallery to realize this monumental idea. Whitereads next major project was Ghost (1990), which bumped the scale of her sculpture up to room size. Launch the image comparison tool or edit the image list. The first woman to win the Turner Prize, the most prestigious art award in the UK, Whiteread continues to make work that is remarkable for its ability to comment on themes of absence and loss in monumental and subtle ways. A hot water bottle is a source of warmth and comfort, to be hugged to the body. In the Library: Rachel Whiteread's "Ghost" is on view from September 17, 2018, to January 11, 2019, in the East Building Study Center, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Rachel Whiteread is one of Britain's leading contemporary artists. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog with contributions by the exhibition's curators, an interview with the artist and James Lingwood, director of Artangel, and essays by Brian Dillon, writer, critic, and head of the writing program at the Royal College of Art; Briony Fer, professor of history of art and research director at the University College, London; Harald Krejci, curator, 21er Haus; Linsey Young, curator of contemporary British art at Tate Britain; and Lynn Zelevansky, formerly the Henry Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art. Lecture In removing the plaster mold, she managed not only to transform the roomness of the room (it was no longer something one could be inside) but also to reveal the personalthe scratches, scars, and dings of human use, the bits of wallpaperand give abstract geometries an emotional resonance. Ghost was Whiteread's breakthrough, ensuring her reputation as an important contemporary artist. Resin and steel - The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whiteread's Holocaust Monument marks one of her earliest public sculptures, an aspect of her practice that has been increasingly important to her career. Washington, DCFor the past 30 years, acclaimed British artist Rachel Whiteread (b. In focusing on the negative or unseen space contained within the wardrobe - a familiar domestic object - Whiteread set a pattern for her own work for years to come. Whiteread has said of this sculpture that she was trying to mummify the air in the room, hence the title. Ghost (1990), that saw her shortlisted for the Turner prize. By the time she graduated in 1998, Whiteread had hit upon her signature style, casting the negative spaces inherent in everyday objects. Without context, the work evokes both recollection and loss. Learn more about our exhibitions, news, programs, and special offers. NEWSLETTERS: If Ghost is a full-scale death mask of a room and its inhabitants, the sculpture is also a mausoleum for a certain social class, a certain way of life, expunged in Thatchers Britain. The Madison Drive entrance is currently closed. As the first woman to have won the Turner Prize, Whiteread is an important figure for many contemporary female artists especially in having developed a way of working that is not focused on women's issues or on an explicitly feminist view point - indeed the industrial scale and materials of many of her sculptures takes any consideration of her work beyond any reductionist reading around gender. The collection features an extraordinary range of material, from manuscripts and early printed books to annotated catalogs and price lists, from landmark publications such as Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists to serials produced by Dada artists. In a way all of Ms. Whitereads sculptures are memorials, but this one is the most powerful artwork I know to use minimal form in the commemoration of the unspeakable. An interior metal armature supported the sculpture so that it wouldnt collapse in on itself. However, it also won Whiteread the Turner Prize and the acclaim of the art world. Rachel Whiteread, Ghost, 1990, Gift of The Glenstone Foundation, Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity. 4th St and Constitution Ave NW Find more prominent pieces of sculpture at Wikiart.org - best visual art database. Rachel Whiteread: "Ghost" In her breakthrough 1990 work Ghost, Rachel Whiteread created a positive from a negative, making a plaster cast of the interior "void" of a Victorian parlor measuring approximately 9 feet wide, 11 1/2 feet high, and 10 feet deep. In addition to examining the qualities of materials other than plasterfor example, resin (Water Tower [1998] and Monument [2001])Whiteread ventured in many directions after winning the Turner Prize. The artwork becomes an immigrant in this context, revealing difference through similarity and causing the viewer to question what differentiates an art object from ordinary objects. Whiteread has been the recipient of countless awards and honors: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2006), the International Medal of Arts from the United States Department of State (2016), and the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize (2017), among others.