Rachel Whiteread - Tate Britain

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Clear Torso), 1993

Rachel Whiteread is at Tate Britain until 21 January 2018.

I am, generally, more drawn to the forms and textures of the everyday than to the stuff of fantasy; Rachel Whiteread’s work speaks directly and poetically about the fascination and strangeness of the often-overlooked objects and spaces of mundane reality. Her life’s work has followed a consistent and focused practice of casting ordinary objects and the spaces they define. She takes familiar objects but makes them strange, she makes the invisible visible, she makes the very air solid – in concrete, plaster, resin, rubber or metal. The strategy may be consistent but the variety of scale and character is exhilarating. From the largest works -  House (1993 – now demolished), the ‘nameless library’ that is The Judenplatz HolocaustMemorial (2000) in Vienna and the WaterTower (1998) in New York – to the smallest, the spaces beneath chairs, Untitled (One Hundred Spaces) 1997, and the form of hot water bottles, eg Untitled (Clear Torso), 1993.

This exhibition promises an exciting survey of 25 years of remarkable work.

Read reviews by Waldemar Januszczak, Laura Cumming, Adrian Searle, Sarah Kent, Mark Hudson, Martin Gayford; read Rachel Whiteread talks to Sue Hubbard (Artlyst)

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Amber Bed), 1991

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1993 (detail)

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Floor), 1995

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Stairs), 2001

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Hive) I, 2007-8

Rachel Whiteread, Due Porte, 2016

 Selected larger works (obviously not in exhibition)

Rachel Whiteread, House, 1993 (demolished, 1994)

Rachel Whiteread, Water Tower, 1998

Rachel Whiteread, Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, Vienna, 1996-2000