Rachel Whiteread: Internal Objects

 by Elen Jones

Poltergeist

On the last Friday of the Easter holiday, I was fortunate enough to travel to the capital to experience Rachel Whiteread’s newly opened exhibition, ‘Internal Objects,’ at the Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. Excluding my train fare, the day was completely free. The city was unusually quiet, although it still hummed with the sounds of power tools and construction workers, making the most of the lull in activity. However, Covid precautions remained omnipresent, with pedestrians masked up and rapid tests being offered on the South Bank.

It seemed a shame that so many glassy edificies remained empty, although Real Estate in London is as fast paced, lucrative and predominantly International, as it has been in recent decades. This means much of the ‘new’ city is private property and, therefore, tenuously linked to the relative ‘heart’ of the place or to London’s idealised metropolitan identity, even at the best of times.

I proceeded from Waterloo, across the river and up past the Mall and St James’ Palace, unable to stop myself detouring via Old Bond Street. Here, under the names CHANEL, GUCCI and Cartier, exclusive shopping appointments continued, with much to-ing and fro-ing as clients were ushered door-to-door.

Through Berkeley Square, the gallery came into view, slightly tucked behind the street corner. Understated, it consists of 3 interconnected spaces, including the entrance - perfectly suiting the poignance and intimacy of Whiteread’s work.

Created over the last 4 years, this collection displayed work with recycled material, resins, bronze and even household paint, all used in an unforeseen and highly considered way. For instance, the bronze, a traditional sculptural medium, appeared to be an Amazon box, painted hurriedly with a single coat of paint. The only clue to the true identity of the material was hinted in the pinky luminescence that the series seemed to cast. Whiteread had picked up on the domestic and ‘corporeal’ shapes that have characterised much of our home lives for the last year : cup rings, cardboard boxes and paper on a notice board, all preserved in their own way, whether in bronze (the boxes), steel and resin (notice board) or framed ink and acrylic ( cup rings).

Her use of resin particularly intrigued me for its translucent/ diaphanous quality and the ability it had to freeze certain materials in its own, coating, gloopy way. Some could say that the material is suffocated, but I think it adds a certain softness to the otherwise harsh lines of the forms, holding compressions and specific states in time. It was therapeutic and comforting. I felt an emotional connection to the work.

 

'Doppleganger'

Her creations ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘Doppelgänger’, the featured pieces, were crafted painstakingly by Whiteread to create 2 cabins. They are made from an agglomeration of assorted wood and metal fragments, collected from beaches in Wales. They are both painted ghostly white, emanating their own light and have clearly suffered a turbulent ordeal. The ubiquity of the whiteness against the blank walls is intentionally eerie and frost like (blanched). It is as if the sculpture is in fact pure and ephemeral - carved of alabaster. I was interested in the duality between this and her casts from the rest of her career. (notably Ghost -1993 - which earned her the Turner prize.) It displayed the ‘inverting’ of her tried and tested system. Hollow objects were not only lighter and created, but they gave Whiteread full reign over the narrative. Looking inside ‘Poltergeist’, which seems suspended, is instantly even more intimate, even than the careful preservation of every dent, crevice and relief, achieved through casting.

Conversely, ‘Doppelgänger appears dropped. It explodes out in a more sporadic manner, more fragmented and disrupted in form, with ripples of wire or whole branches, reaching out to the spectator. I like her powerful storytelling and how it is still intertwined with minimalism. It is melancholic as, without any specific reference, the works are each alone in their own isolated realities. The  ‘apocalyptic’ disaster that had ruptured the sheds is so permanent, proven when one tries and fails to visualise how the completed structures would really appear ; they are impossible to reassemble.

Yet despite their distance and spectral qualities, they are certainly tangible. If we accept the argument that an artist can never truly be separated from their art, we could infer that Whiteread herself has sought solace this year, perhaps in a similarly sized shed, but has also felt the effects of isolation. Inspired by the writings of John Steinbeck, it is possible to consider  that the dried, carcass-like frames of these bleached forms are akin to the remains of western ghost towns that litter the sleepy Californian deserts of Death Valley National Park.

I left the gallery feeling calm and quiet. I walked back along London’s streets observing the slower pace. I felt more observant, acknowledging the airy light beaming down into Waterloo station, and the vacant apartments - emblems of London’s productivity lying dormant and peaceful.

Poltergeist, 2021 >

RACHEL WHITEREAD - INTERNAL OBJECTS

April 12 - June 6 2021

Gagosian

20 Grosvenor Hill, London

https://gagosian.com/locations/london-grosvenor-hill/

Own Photographs - 04/2021