Rachel Whiteread at the Hammer
Didn’t I just say that people are crazy about artist’s notebooks? We had Tim Burton‘s teenage napkin scrawls at MoMA and the New York Academy of Art’s behind-the-scenes journal exhibition and now, with a fresh approach to the idea is “Rachel Whiteread Drawings” at LA’s Hammer Museum. Whiteread’s sculptures focus on the space that structures and physical objects don’t inhabit and most often take the form of architectural casts, as with “House,” a cast of the inside of an entire Victorian house. “House” won her the Turner Prize in 1993, and she is still the only woman to whom the prize has been awarded.
Her upcoming exhibition at the Hammer is not simply a collection of preliminary sketches leading up to some of her famous sculptures. It includes those sketches as well as a vitrine of found objects that inspire her work, things like wooden shoe forms, pieces of bone and rock – even a dental mold. But most importantly is the rarely seen collection of Whiteread’s works on paper. They may work on smaller scale than her sculptures, but are every bit as visually interesting and important to understanding her entire milieu.
