Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread was born on 20th April 1963 is an English artist best known for her sculptures, which take the form of casts and she also works with boxes. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize Witch is an amazing accomplishment.

She is one of the Youngest British Artists, and exhibited at the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition in 1997. She is probably best known for House, a large concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian house, and for her resin sculpture for the empty plinth in London's Trafalgar Square.

She made a transparent resin cast of the actual plinth, standing upside-down and 14ft high. This is interesting because no one else has done this there has been many sculptures and pieces of art displayed on the 4th plinth but nothing like this because it actually is the 4th plinth on top of the 4th plinth.

I never saw this in person but on the newspaper The Telegraph says "Its beauty is entirely sensuous. When the light shines through the clear resin, it changes colour from cold grey or clear blue, depending on whether the day is overcast or sunny. Because it is as clear as an ice cube, it absorbs all its light and movement from the world around it."

This piece is unusual and makes the audience stop and think of why the artist would do this. What my first thoughts were that she wanted people to see the 4th plinth as a piece of art in itself, everyone places artwork on top of the plinth but never actually see the plinth its self.


After the unveiling of what is the largest ever work in resin, Rachel Whiteread said that it had been a "very, very difficult" piece to make.
She was also reported to say "After spending some time in Trafalgar Square observing the people, traffic, pigeons, architecture, sky and fountains, I became acutely awear of the general chaos of Central London life. I decided that the most appropriate sculpture for the plinth would make a 'pause': a quiet moment for the space".

Background information about the Plinths:
The three other plinths in the square have large-scale equestrian statues: two of 19th century imperial generals and one of King George IV. But the fourth has stood empty since King William IV died without leaving enough funds to have his own statue erected, and no one else stepped in. In 1995 the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) was given permission by Westminster City Council to fill the plinth. The RSA has now handed over the project to the Greater London Authority which will oversee a rotation of contemporary works on the site.    

  Turbine Hall:

In spring 2004, she was offered the annual Unilever Series commission to produce a piece for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, delaying acceptance for five to six months until she was confident she could conceive of a work to fill the space.

It consists of 14,000 translucent, white polyethylene boxes witch were the casts of inside the boxes themselves stacked in different ways; most of the boxes stacked up look like a city landscape or mountains and they are fixed in position with adhesive.

She also spoke of the death of her mother and a period of upheaval which involved packing and moving comparable boxes. Also she went to the Arctic and the white boxes could symbolise her experiences there or used it as inspiration, although critics counter that white is merely the colour the polyethylene comes in, and it would have added significantly to the expense to dye them.

The boxes were manufactured from casts of ten distinct cardboard boxes by a company that produces grit bins and traffic bollards.

Here are some quotes from newspapers about the work:

"Everything feels surprisingly domestic in scale, the intimidating vistas of the Turbine Hall shrunk down to irregular paths and byways. From atop the walkway, it looks like a storage depot that is steadily losing the plot; from inside, as you thread your way between the mounds of blocks, it feels more like an icy maze."

— Andrew Dickson, The Guardian, 10 October 2005.

"This is another example of meritless gigantism that could be anywhere, and is the least successful of the gallery's six attempts to exploit its most unsympathetic space,"

— Brian Sewell, London Eveninjg Standard, October 2005.

"With this work Whiteread has deepened her game, and made a work as rich and subtle as it is spectacular. Whatever else it is, Embankment is generous and brave, a statement of intent."

— Adrian Searle, The Gauardian, 11 October 2005.

When i first saw the work I was confused by it because they were just white boxes piled ontop of each other. But while doing some research into why she made these boxes and other peoples responses to the artwork made me think a bit more about the boxes and what they could represent. I suppose you have to go and actual see the work and be in the atmosphere and experience it for yourself to fully understand what she was trying to get across to the audience with this piece.

Overall i think this artist is interesting because she takes casts of inside of the object even whole houses and displays them to the public. Some people might not get her artwork or even like it but my opinion is that with her artwork you need to be there and see it for yourself and not look at pictures on the Internet or in newspapers. If you ever get an opportunity to go and visit her work do it because you might see or find something interesting, I will defiantly go and visit some of her next artworks.