- 217
Rachel Whiteread
Description
- Rachel Whiteread
- WAIT
- plaster and wood
- 79 by 39 by 41 cm. 31 1/8 by 15 3/8 by 16 1/8 in.
- Executed in 2005.
Provenance
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Greensboro, Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Lining of Forgetting, 2008, p. 63, illustrated in colour
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Rachel Whiteread, October 2008 - January 2009
Condition
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Catalogue Note
CATHERINE WOOD
Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Embankment, 2005, p. 27
Expressing her interest in the representation of everyday objects through the complexity of their negative appearances, Rachel Whiteread’s WAIT is an exquisite example of the artist’s innovative formal language. Her profound exploration of negative spaces through the investigation of everyday objects, have made her one of the most influential British sculptors working today.
In the present work, six boxes of various sizes are organised around the empty spaces of a chair, simultaneously filling the space yet also representing the void within objects that are no longer present. This intriguing set-up is highly typical of Whiteread’s inventive mode of production, which introduces a conceptual complexity that concomitantly enthrals and confuses the spectator. Through casts of real packages, the artist’s sculptures represent the empty spaces within their original objects, thus placing the viewer in the position of the package itself, looking in from an otherwise physically impossible perspective. The details of the plaster impressions are highly intricate, as they constitute indexical traces of the items’ past presence. The modus operandi of Whiteread’s plaster objects has indeed been compared to that of a three-dimensional photograph, since the sculptures are not only signifiers for the absence of these objects, but also have a physical connection to their former presence.
As the physical ghosts of absent negative spaces, Whiteread’s sculpture breathes new life into their domestic subjects. Indeed, the domesticity of the materials used in WAIT recalls the artist’s most famous project - the large-scale cast of an entire house – and represents her interest in architecture. Through the individual building blocks that constitute the present work, WAIT oscillates between the monumental architectural ambitions of Whiteread’s well-known public sculptures, and a beautifully poetic, minimalist sensibility.