Page 71 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2001)

artist ProFiLE ARTisT pROfiLe peTRU LUCACi ROMania

The Taming

NiGHT-sHADOWs
racHEL wHitErEad TRANsieNT spACes 2001 cHaRcOal and Wax of LiIith
TO OpeN AT THe sOLOMON R. GUGGeNHeiM MUseUM iN MARCH 8 THROUGH JUNe 5, 2002 On canvaS
Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces, an exhibition of two new sculptures by british artist Rachel 150 x 120 cM, 59 x 47¼ in.
Whiteread, opens at the Solomon R. guggenheim Museum on March 8, 2002. The works, Untitled
(basement) (2001), and Untitled (apartment) (2001), which were commissioned by the deutsche by Magda câRneci
guggenheim berlin and exhibited there last fall, were cast from the artist’s new home and studio. How to explain the sudden passage of Petru
The two sculptures articulate the artist’s preoccupation with architecture as a reflection of
personal memory and history and as a means to address larger social forces. The exhibition will be lucaci -well known for the explosive sensuality
on view through June 5, 2002. This exhibition is made possible by deutsche bank. of his intensely colored, ardent painting- to the
“We are extremely proud to present these monumental new works by Rachel Whiteread,” noted abyss of profound black?
director Thomas krens. “Rachel is one of the most formidable sculptors of our time. Her unique What mysterious alchemy will have turned
approach to the discipline is clear in these pieces, which possess an intense physical presence and the over fullness of an abstract expressionistic
communicate a deep sense of humanity.” punctuality into, apparent y, its absolute
l
The exhibition was organized by lisa dennison, deputy director and chief curator, Solomon R.
guggenheim Museum, new York. The exhibition is installed in the museum’s seventh-floor annex opposite?
gallery. at a more careful look, however, the present
Over the last twenty years, Rachel Whiteread has transformed ordinary domestic objects and time “night-shadows”- with those strange items
architectural spaces into poetic sculptures that explore the relationship between memory, of collage of real charcoal pieces on vague
architecture, and the body; and the private and public realm. in the late 1980’s, Whiteread began black-on-black or black-on-bleak-dark-grey
making sculptures by casting household fixtures and furniture, including wardrobes, beds, sinks,
and baths, to create pieces which emphasize the private aspects of domestic life and reflect the backgrounds continue in a hidden key-an older
human body in symbolic terms. Using such industrial materials as plaster, concrete, rubber, and obsession of the painter. The woman’s body,
polystyrene, Whiteread typically casts the space underneath, around, or inside the objects, creating once tackled as a place of sensorial delights
negative impressions of the items she works with. These forms record the shape and surface of and of mythology, heavenly reverie, seems to
the original objects in detail, but not their physical presence, often invoking in the viewer a sense of become now a place of “the shadow of the
remembrance and feelings of absence and loss. psyche” and of descent to the subconscious of
Over time, Whiteread expanded the scope of her program to include casts of larger architectonic
spaces. in 1993, the artist created her first public sculpture, entitled House. The work, an off-white the self. Orpheus conjuring eurydice from Hades,
concrete cast of the interior spaces in a victorian working-class home, appeared as a phantom still in love with her. adam fearfully getting near
of the original building and drew attention to the consequences of gentrification in east london eve’s malefic force, called lilith. The masculine
occurring at the time. in October 2000, Whiteread unveiled the Holocaust Memorial in vienna, a principle groping for his feminine inside, or
commemoration to the 65,000 austrian Jews who were killed during World War ii. This monolithic anonymous hugging his anima, to speak in
project - an impenetrable, inside-out library - alludes to nazi book burnings, and to the concept of
the “people of the book.” Jung’s jargon.
The two new large-scale sculptures presented in Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces were created Or maybe only a strictly pictorial calcinations
from a london building that, over time, has had various functions, operating as a synagogue, a from the inside of the colors until their complete
textile merchant’s warehouse, and presently, as Whiteread’s residence and studio. With their negation (but encompassing them all) in the
smooth, unadulterated surfaces, both works embody the generic nature of much postwar manner of the americans clifford Still, barnett
architecture and emphasize the simple geometry of the structures from which they come. devoid newman, brice Marden or of the french Pierre
of architectural flourish, Untitled (apartment) (2001) is comprised of a series of small, nondescript
rooms, suggestive of the low-income, standardized housing that developed after World War ii as Soulages and of many others, attracted in the
europe strove to rebuild itself. Untitled (basement) (2001) is a cast of a staircase that, by being latest half of the century by indetermination,
reoriented on its side, engenders a surprising encounter between the viewer and this ordinary nihilism, ,,the mystic of the black”. anyway we
architectural necessity. Through invoking the building’s history, Whiteread’s two sculptures reflect are dealing here with a temptation, a descent
on the aesthetic and sociological concerns and necessities that shaped post-war europe. into the abyss and a salvation-through the
in the early 1990’s, Whiteread began to receive international attention as part of a stylistically
diverse group of artists referred to as the Young british artists. She has received such accolades shadowy, blurred destroyed feminine body-but
as the Tate gallery’s Turner Prize in 1993 and a medal at the 1997 venice biennale. Throughout never theless with a sensitive curve appearing as
europe and the United States, her work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions in peTRU LUCACi a reference point in chaos from time to time.
museums and galleries, and she has realized several public art projects. Most recently, in the bld feRdinand i, nR 24, eT3, aP12, RO-70313 bUcUReSTi ROMania anyway, in front of these strong paintings we
summer of 2001, her work was featured in a retrospective at the Serpentine gallery in london, and +40 1 642 41 95 gSM +40 92 735 393, e-mail: laura@cepes.ro can live recognition and a “walling-in” of one’s
a public sculpture entitled Monument was unveiled in Trafalgar Square. www.romania-art.com own shadow, but also a necessary exorcism-
The works presented in Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces were created as part of deutsche
guggenheim berlin’s ongoing program whereby new works by contemporary artists are expressive, refined, and superb- of our exterior
commissioned by and exhibited at the deutsche guggenheim berlin, and subsequently enter its gloom.
peTRU LUCACi
permanent collection. This program has made deutsche guggenheim berlin unique within the
arts community. in addition to Whiteread, artists who have created new works as part of this
program include: Jeff koons, James Rosenquist, andreas Slominski, Hiroshi Sugimoto, bill viola, and
lawrence Weiner. WORLD of ART 69