Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Installation view
Artwork © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Rachel Whiteread
Untitled (Stable Door), 2024–26
Papier-mâché and silver leaf, in aluminum frame, 43 ⅜ × 37 ⅞ × 4 inches (110 × 96 × 10 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Rachel Whiteread
Untitled (Copper Door), 2024–26
Papier-mâché and copper leaf, in aluminum frame, 71 ⅞ × 44 ⅛ × 4 inches (182.5 × 112 × 10 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Rachel Whiteread
Untitled (Barn Door), 2024–26
Papier-mâché and silver leaf, in aluminum frame, 71 ⅛ × 35 ½ × 3 ⅛ inches (180.5 × 90 × 8 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Rachel Whiteread
Untitled (Seaside), 2026
Resin, 27 ⅜ × 13 ¾ × 5 ⅞ inches (69.5 × 34.8 × 14.8 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Rachel Whiteread
Untitled (Morning Light), 2026
Resin, 49 ½ × 27 ½ × 6 ⅛ inches (125.5 × 69.7 × 15.5 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures and recent photographs by Rachel Whiteread at its Davies Street gallery, opening on March 26. The exhibition title, Substitute, resonates with the artist’s use of one medium to echo another, and to the way in which her casting process replaces negative space with physical substance.
Substitute features large, wall-mounted sculptural reliefs produced by pressing papier-mâché pulp onto timeworn wooden barn doors and sections of gates, then covering the resultant forms in pigmented silver and copper leaf. In contrast to these opaque metallic surfaces are two transparent resin casts of sash windows in blue and pink hues.
In her sculptural practice, Whiteread often uses standard industrial substances such as concrete, resin, and rubber, as well as more traditional materials like plaster and bronze, to produce cast objects with significatory presence that evoke absence, memory, and loss. Building on a foundation of Minimalist aesthetics, she focuses on the tangible surfaces of life, revealing lingering markers of age and use while drawing attention to negative space.
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about this exhibition
From her Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna to her casting of George Orwell’s World War II office at the BBC, Rachel Whiteread has long engaged with the emotional and historical complexities of addressing deeply troubling moments in human history through art. This month, Whiteread will debut a new work for the inaugural exhibition at the Goodwood Art Foundation in Sussex, England.
An installation by Rachel Whiteread in the Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, Italy, commissioned by Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo and cocurated by Lorenzo Giusti and Sara Fumagalli, opened in June of 2023 and ran into the fall. Conceived in relation to the city, the architecture of the site, and the history of the region, it comprised sixty sculptures made with local types of stone. Fumagalli writes on the exhibition and architect Luca Cipelletti speaks with Whiteread.
The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.
On the occasion of the unveiling of her latest Shy Sculpture, in Kunisaki, Japan, Rachel Whiteread joined curator and art historian Fumio Nanjo for a conversation about this ongoing series.They address the origins of these sculptures and the details of each project.
As spring approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, Sydney Stutterheim reflects on the iconography and symbolism of the season in art both past and present.
On the occasion of Artist Spotlight: Rachel Whiteread, curator Tom Eccles and artist Kiki Smith speak about the work of Rachel Whiteread through the lens of their personal friendships with her. They discuss her public projects from the early 1990s to the present, the relationship between drawing and sculpture in her practice, and the way her works reveal the memories embedded in familiar everyday objects.
Rachel Whiteread speaks to Ann Gallagher about a new group of resin sculptures for an exhibition at Gagosian in London. They discuss the works’ emphasis on surface texture, light, and reflection.
Rachel Whiteread writes about the Italian artist’s Baptism of Christ (after 1437) and what has drawn her to this painting, from her first experience of it at a young age to the present day.
James Lawrence explores how contemporary artists have grappled with the subject of the library.
Rachel Whiteread’s public sculpture Nissen Hut was unveiled in October 2018 in Yorkshire’s Dalby Forest. Curator Tamsin Dillon explores the dynamic history of these structures and provides a firsthand account of the steps leading up to the work’s premiere.
An exhibition at Gagosian, Paris, is raising funds to aid in the reconstruction of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris following the devastating fire of April 2019. Gagosian directors Serena Cattaneo Adorno and Jean-Olivier Després spoke to Jennifer Knox White about the generous response of artists and others, and what the restoration of this iconic structure means across the world.
The Summer 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Afrylic by Ellen Gallagher on its cover.
The Spring 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Red Pot with Lute Player #2 by Jonas Wood on its cover.
Rachel Whiteread’s US Embassy (Flat pack house) was unveiled in its permanent home at the new American embassy in Nine Elms, London, in early 2018. Virginia Shore, the curator for the London embassy project who worked with Whiteread to realize this site-specific commission, reflects on the history of prefabricated housing, the power of “home,” and the connecting force of art.
James Lawrence explores the quiet power and critical role of memory in Rachel Whiteread’s public works.
