Rachel Whiteread.

by Beatriz Colomina

New Lower Price! Rachel Whiteread creates spare, poetic sculptures that challenge perceptions of the commonplace. Working from everyday domestic items, she casts--in rubber, concrete, plaster and polyester resin--the negative spaces inside closets and underneath beds, sinks, bathtubs and chairs. In one of her most personal projects, the artist was commissioned by Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin to make two large-scale casts from distinct spaces in a London building that she recently purchases as her home and studio. Although the building has a history as both a synagogue and a factory, it is a product of austere postwar architecture, lacking many of the traditional embellishments associated with such structures. This fully illustrated volume documents Whiteread's process as she creates casts from this religious-cum-industrial -cum-personal space, which blurs boundaries between the spiritual and secular, as well as the public and private.

Genres: Art

Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Beatriz Colomina is founding director of the program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University and Professor in the School of Architecture.

She has written extensively on the interrelationships between architecture, art, media, sexuality and health.