Rachel Whiteread
Harriet Zinnes
It is the human presence that engages the British artist Rachel Whiteread. And yet what one sees is rarely a human figure. Always there is space. Always there are walls. And in the present exhibition (through June 5) at the Guggenheim Museum (1011 Fifth Avenue, New York City) entitled significantly "Transient Spaces," there is a staircase. Two works, "Untitled (Basement) (2001)" and "Untitled (Apartment) (2001)" quietly without word, without presences, demonstrate the artist’s view of contemporary social and political conditions. Her Holocausst Memorial in Vienna, for example, that was unveiled in October 2000, was a commemoration to the 65,000 Austrian Jews who were killed during World War II. It was a strange library (shown as well in New York City in 1999 at the Luhring Augustine Gallery) containing books that were not books. They may have related to "people of the book" but there were no people: only the suggestion of Nazi book burnings. Clearly, the suffering of contemporary human beings under political upheaval is what concerns the artist.
In the current exhibition there are two large-scale sculptures the architectural foundations of which have an interesting origin. They were created from a London building that was once a synagogue, then a textile merchant’s warehouse, and now the artist’s own residence. Stripped of any architectural adornment, the sculptures suggest the low-income standardized housing of a post World War II Europe. They also tell the story of contemporary history, a history where homes are destroyed and what is left are structures devoid of physical enhancement and decoration. Rachel Whiteread’s sculptural works are stark white buildings with unopened doors, and suggest that were they opened very likely would reveal mere skeletons of past morbid political consequences. Ah, again, less "Sensation," more contemporary history.
Rachel Whiteread is among young British artists who are receiving international attention. She won the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize in l993, for example, and a medal at the 1997 Venice Biennale. Her work is shown frequently in solo exhibitions in Europe and in the United States. In 2001 a public sculpture entitled "Monument" was unveiled in Trafalgar Square. Britain’s artists are indeed having their say.
