2010，4，25日Rachel Whiteread
“图纸之外”在洛杉矶开幕
 
 

Rachel Whiteread, Stairs, 1995
 
当代艺术家雷切尔怀特海Rachel Whiteread以他的雕塑而闻名于世，几乎完全以这个消极空间和围绕的建筑结构而飞黄腾达。 现在在洛杉矶Hammer博物馆的一个回顾展上，博物馆第一次敢于去弄清楚她偏重追求的图纸。

 Perhaps previously overlooked as preliminaries to a final sculptural piece, or just obscured by the monumentality of her public works, it is an interesting choice, and a critical one, in order to assert the importance of this ignored portion of an artist’s oeuvre. Whiteread herself affirms the personal import of these works when she described them thus: “My drawings are a diary of my work.” [Press Release] In the press release this metaphor is aptly extended as they describe how “like the passages in a diary her drawings range from fleeting ideas to labored reflections.”



Rachel Whiteread, Vitrine Objects
More text and images after the jump…



Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Double Mattress Yellow), 1991


Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Double Amber Bed), 1991
The exhibition makes a concerted effort in claiming the drawings independence from Whiteread’s sculptural works, despite some very strong commonalities; most specifically the portrayal of notions of absence and presence.  However, though the drawings are beautiful it is not entirely convincing that they stand-alone.  This is highlighted by the inclusion of some sculptural works to complement the drawings, including a rubber cast of a mattress positioned slumped against the wall and a plaster cast of the surrounding space of a bath tub, topped with glass.  Nevertheless, the exhibition encourages us to look beyond the finished article to the conception and development of an idea.  It is about considering the entirety of an artist’s creative practice.




Rachel Whiteread, Vitrine Objects
Possibly the most interesting element of the exhibition is Whiteread’s own “extended notion of drawings.” Scores of items collected by the artist, from disparate sources including thrift stores and pavements, are arranged in surprising, and sometimes amusing, groupings. In this way Whiteread is working very much within a tradition, evident from Renaissance artists’ collection of classical fragments to the Surrealists love affair with chance discoveries of objects. As Christopher Knight states, in the L.A. Times blog Culture Monster, the drawings, and by extension the exhibition as a whole, “follow a ruminating mind moving parallel to the finished sculptures for which Whiteread is now so well known.”



Rachel Whiteread, Trafalgar Square Project, 1998



Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Room), 1992A truly ambitious exhibition in both concept and scale, it includes in excess of 120 drawings, 10 sculptures and maquettes, five notebooks, 72 altered postcards and over 230 of the inspirational objects. More than enough to be getting on with.



Rachel Whiteread, Study for Village – 1st, 2004


Rachel Whiteread, Door, 1992


Rachel Whiteread, Table, 1989


Rachel Whiteread, Vitrine Objects




Rachel Whiteread, Vitrine Objects
Related Links:
Rachel Whiteread Drawings [UCLA Hammer Museum Official Website]
Rachel Whiteread – Artist’s Info [Gagosian Gallery]
The Power of Negative Thinking [LA Weekly]
Art review: ‘Rachel Whiteread Drawings’ at UCLA Hammer Museum [LA Times]