![]() ![]() ![]() Whiteread returned to the space in and under beds and mattresses a number of times, turning to rubber sometimes as a casting material for these (as in Air Bed II (1993) for example). Torso by Rachel Whiteread, 1988, via Tate, LondonĪdding to the uncanniness of negative space made solid and the ghostly pallor of plaster, there is a doubleness to Shallow Breath and Torso in how, inverting the art historical traditions of minimalist oblong and classical torsos, they seem to suggest a human presence, indirectly indexing the trace of human bodies and its absence, acting as an obstacle. Whiteread has referred to this and subsequent torso sculptures as her headless, limbless babies. ![]() The echo of the body in Torso goes without saying. Shallow Breath was propped vertically against the wall, approximating the presence of a standing human figure. They can refer to privacy, childhood, or illness. Evading direct expression, the cast-sculptures are charged with vague connotations of intimacy and the vulnerability of bodies in the bed space. Both of these early pieces have an anthropomorphic quality, emphasized by their titles’ references to the human body. Shallow Breath was a cast of the space under a bed, while Torso represented the cavity inside a hot water bottle, both, again, in plaster. The surface embellishments of these first ventures into casting, the felt and the table-top were something Whiteread left behind, going on to focus on the casting itself. Mantle was a cast of the space beneath a table, with the glass table top reattached. Closet was a plaster cast of the interior of a wardrobe, covered in black felt. These were called Closet, Mantle, Shallow Breath, and Torso. In her first show in 1988, Whiteread exhibited the first examples of her plaster casts of negative space. Traditionally, bronze sculptures are made by casting around an original wax sculpture to make a mold into which the liquid bronze can be poured.īeginnings: Whiteread’s First Castings Shallow Breath by Rachel Whiteread, 1988, via BmoreArt. In engineering, medicine, and art, this can then be used, through different methods and repetitions of the process, to create copies of the original form. Casting is the process by which a material, usually liquid, is poured into or around an object and allowed to harden, creating a solid inversion of the original object. These are some of the areas of historical culture and contemporary life in which casts and casting might most commonly be encountered. Think of the preserved city of Pompeii, death masks, dental molds, and mass production. What Is Casting? Untitled (Yellow Torso) by Rachel Whiteread, 1991, Tate, London These she defamiliarizes through inversion, making the space around or inside them into a solid object, an index uncannily reminiscent of the source object: strangely familiar and familiarly strange. More specifically, casting the negative space inside and around everyday objects and interiors.įrom small to large (hot water bottles to entire houses), Whiteread’s cast-sculptures have predominantly been made from objects from the domestic sphere. It was here she started to develop the method of sculpture-making to which she has remained remarkably loyal throughout most of her career: casting. Who Is Rachel Whiteread? Untitled (Stairs) by Rachel Whiteread, 2001, via Tate, Londonįirst studying painting at Brighton Polytechnic, Rachel Whiteread moved on to study sculpture at Slade School of Art. ![]()
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