Rachel Whiteread

Dame Rachel Whiteread , DBE (born April 20, 1963 in London ) is an English sculptor

Rachel Whiteread, Holocaust Memorial, Vienna, Judenplatz

biography

Rachel Whiteread studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic from 1982 to 1985 with a BA in Painting. From 1985 to 1987 she completed a degree in sculpture a. a. with Phyllida Barlow at the Slade School of Fine Art and earned the degree of Sculpture MA. She also studied at the Academy of Arts in Cyprus .

Whiteread creates objects , sculptures , installations , mixed media and drawings . That is why she cannot be clearly classified as a sculptor. Whiteread has achieved a high level of awareness through her sculptural work:

The artist takes imprints with plaster of paris, rubber, plastics and other materials from everyday objects and architectural details to the imprint of entire rooms, even a house (House 1993, destroyed 1994). On the one hand, these white objects depict the object (reality), document traces of use, but on the other hand reflect their object and have a high level of abstraction due to the white material. In this respect, many of the prints she has taken document the empty space (the void) around objects more clearly; this applies z. B. for prints from bookshelves or from the bottom of a sink. International exhibitions were organized for Rachel Whiteread. In 1998 she created the Water Tower for public spaces in New York .

For Vienna she created in 2000 , the Holocaust Memorial at the Judenplatz . In the style of Whiteread's empty spaces, it represented a library with books facing outwards. The memorial can be understood as an appreciation of Judaism as a religion of the book, but it also addresses the cultural void created by the genocide of European Jews (memory and loss).

A further development of her artistic work can be seen in Whiteread's exhibition at Tate Modern , London, in 2005/2006. Rachel Whiteread poured 14,000 cardboard boxes with polyethylene. These casts are exhibited in the large entrance hall of the museum like a bizarre landscape. The motif of the cardboard cast is based on a cardboard box left by Whiteread's mother in which Christmas decorations were kept. The casts are to be recycled after the exhibition.

Exhibitions (selection)

Whiteread exhibition at Tate Modern, London, 2005

• 1992: documenta IX , Kassel
• 1994: Kunsthalle Basel , Switzerland
• 1996: Tate Gallery , Liverpool, Great Britain
• 1997: Sculpture.Projects Münster
• 2000: Tate Modern , London, Great Britain
• 2002: Kunsthalle Basel , Switzerland
• 2002: Deutsche Guggenheim , Berlin
• 2003: Wolfsburg Art Museum
• 2003: Carnegie Museum of Art American Federation of Arts, New York, USA
• 2004: Museu de Arte Moderna , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• 2004: Museu de Arte Moderna , São Paulo, Brazil
• 2005: Kunsthaus Bregenz , Austria
• 2005: Tate Modern, London, Great Britain
• 2005/2006: State Museum Schwerin (catalog)
• 2007/2008: Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg

Awards

• 1993: British Turner Prize
• 1996: Prix ​​Eliette von Karajan
• 1997: Medal at the Venice Biennale
• 1997: Rejection of membership in the Royal Academy of Arts , London
• 2006: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
• 2007: August Seeling Prize (Freundeskreis Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum), Duisburg
• 2019: Dame Commander des Order of the British Empire (DBE)

Web links

Commons : Rachel Whiteread  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Rachel Whiteread in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rachel Whiteread at artfacts.net
• Jon Bird: The Art of Rachel Whiteread: Turning the Inside Out In: Le Monde diplomatique . January 11, 2018.