About
Gagosian is pleased to present Detached, an exhibition of new sculpture by Rachel Whiteread. Her title calls by name the abstracting or distancing from reality that is an intrinsic part of the artistic process.
Whiteread’s sculpture is predicated on casting procedures, and the traces left on the sacrificial objects and spaces from which the final inverse form is derived. She casts from everyday objects as well as from the space beneath or around furniture and architecture, using single materials such as rubber, dental plaster, and resin to record every nuance. Detached 1, Detached 2, and Detached 3 (all 2012) figure the empty interior of a garden shed in concrete and steel. Cast from generic wooden sheds, the large-scale sculptures render negative space into solid form, and the prosaic into something fantastically disquieting. The sheds recall the monolithic architectural and site-specific works for which Whiteread first became renowned, such as Ghost (1990) and House (1993), and, most recently, the imposing concrete sculpture The Gran Boathouse (2010), installed on the water’s edge in the remote Nordic landscape of Røykenviken.
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Rachel Whiteread: … And the Animals Were Sold
An installation by Rachel Whiteread in the Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, Italy, commissioned by Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo and cocurated by Lorenzo Giusti and Sara Fumagalli, opened in June of 2023 and ran into the fall. Conceived in relation to the city, the architecture of the site, and the history of the region, it comprised sixty sculptures made with local types of stone. Fumagalli writes on the exhibition and architect Luca Cipelletti speaks with Whiteread.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022
The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.
Rachel Whiteread: Shy Sculpture
On the occasion of the unveiling of her latest Shy Sculpture, in Kunisaki, Japan, Rachel Whiteread joined curator and art historian Fumio Nanjo for a conversation about this ongoing series.They address the origins of these sculptures and the details of each project.
Augurs of Spring
As spring approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, Sydney Stutterheim reflects on the iconography and symbolism of the season in art both past and present.
In Conversation
Tom Eccles and Kiki Smith on Rachel Whiteread
On the occasion of Artist Spotlight: Rachel Whiteread, curator Tom Eccles and artist Kiki Smith speak about the work of Rachel Whiteread through the lens of their personal friendships with her. They discuss her public projects from the early 1990s to the present, the relationship between drawing and sculpture in her practice, and the way her works reveal the memories embedded in familiar everyday objects.
In Conversation
Rachel Whiteread and Ann Gallagher
Rachel Whiteread speaks to Ann Gallagher about a new group of resin sculptures for an exhibition at Gagosian in London. They discuss the works’ emphasis on surface texture, light, and reflection.
News
Artist Spotlight
Rachel Whiteread
October 21–27, 2020
In Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures and drawings, everyday settings, objects, and surfaces are transformed into ghostly replicas that are eerily familiar. Through casting, she frees her subject matter—from beds, tables, and boxes to water towers and entire houses—from practical use, suggesting a new permanence, imbued with memory.
Photo: Anita Corbin, from the series First Women UK
Online Reading
Rachel Whiteread
Detached
Rachel Whiteread: Detached is available for online reading from October 21 through November 19 as part of Artist Spotlight: Rachel Whiteread. Published on the occasion of the artist’s 2013 exhibition at Gagosian, Britannia Street, London, this catalogue features in situ images of Detached 1, Detached 2, and Detached 3 (all 2012), along with documentary photographs of the works in progress. Also included are vitrines incorporating found objects, small casts, and maquettes; a series of resin sculptures, cast from doors and windows, in delicate hues such as rose and eau de Nil; and works on paper. A text by Briony Fer examines the materiality of Whiteread’s work.
Rachel Whiteread: Detached (New York: Gagosian, 2013)