Glutter Plugs: Change of Heart on Rachel Whiteread, Conceptual Artist

Glutter Plugs and Doodles In 2001, I attended a Rachel Whiteread opening in London an artist who is often touted as one of the top in the British scene. A caster using different mediums instead of recreating what is already there or creating something new, she casts the space around things like the outside of a house or the inside of a house with windows, plug sockets, bricks or casts of ordinary objects. She did a few pieces I liked, my favorites -casts of mattresses. I found the hardness of the medium mixed with its subject fascinating. My mind couldn’t comprehend something that looked soft, with cotton squirming out could not be flopped on and would hurt a lot if I attempted it. The other I really liked was a caste of the negative space underneath a small table, the legs and table defining the space and thus solidifying normal “emptiness” into an “Object” (photo right) I liked the idea of making “space” art. I enjoyed how she questioned homemade objects, and reversed our understanding and perspective of them. The rest, I found dull. White Plaster casting of the back of a synagogue staircase, commemorating holocaust victims, a glass thing piled up with some lights and brick plus a shelf with books lacquered black. The latter I could not fathom who would buy it, only to find out it was an art buyer friend I had known since my teens (Which to this day I found such a strange coincidence.) Overall I found the show “Okay,” “too quiet for my taste” and “visually boring.” Until this morning, for reasons unknown, when I got out of bed to pull open the curtains, I found myself thinking, “Rachel Whiteread is a genius. Those two pieces and her casting of houses is the best conceptual art out there.” It took the rest of the day to understand the change of heart. It’s because she questions rather presents. Her work is visually boring. But it’s a statement of asking us to see things we don’t pay attention to. Areas that shift and change all the time, space that we as solid objects can move through, without hindrance, and mold as we please until she’s reversed them putting barriers up for shapes we never before have to take into account. If you draw or paint, you become aware of negative space because you have to use it to present anything in 2 Dimensional Form. Sometimes it’s easier to draw the area around an object rather than the object itself because it’s more distinct. All painting and sketches are recording of the “blank” as well as the “solid.” Herein is where Rachel Whiteread’s genius lies. She is the first (as far as I am aware) who presented the negative in a sculptural form -a three dimensional object one can walk around, and “see” in actuality. Her art itself is not so much something to look at. It’s a question to ponder. That is “Conceptual” in its purist form. PS: New Rachel Whiteread Exhibition, London Photos: http://www.zingmagazine.com, http://www.varoregistry.com, http://www.bbc.com