Rachel Whiteread

In Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures and drawings, everyday settings, objects, and surfaces are transformed into ghostly replicas that are eerily familiar. Through casting, she frees her subject matter—from beds, tables, and boxes to water towers and entire houses—from practical use, suggesting a new permanence, imbued with memory.

The Artist Spotlight series highlights the work of individual artists for one week each month. Launched in spring 2020 as a weekly platform, the series is now in its second season and is presented as a regular part of the gallery’s programming. Each Artist Spotlight features new online content, and artwork by the artist is made available with pricing information for forty-eight hours only.

Artist Spotlight: Rachel Whiteread features a recent cast sculpture from a new body of work by the artist. For more information, please contact the gallery at collecting@gagosian.com.

Photo: Anita Corbin, from the series First Women UK

From the Quarterly

In Conversation
Tom Eccles and Kiki Smith on Rachel Whiteread

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.

In Conversation
Rachel Whiteread and Ann Gallagher

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 on Piero della Francesca

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.

Solid Recollections: Rachel Whiteread

James Lawrence explores the quiet power and critical role of memory in Rachel Whiteread’s public works.

Rachel Whiteread: … And the Animals Were Sold

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.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022

The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.

Rachel Whiteread: Shy Sculpture

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.

Augurs of Spring

As spring approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, Sydney Stutterheim reflects on the iconography and symbolism of the season in art both past and present.

Cast of Characters

James Lawrence explores how contemporary artists have grappled with the subject of the library.

Shy Sculpture: Nissen Hut

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.

For Notre-Dame

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.