Rachel Whiteread's. House
Rachel Whiteread's House
Memory is not alien to us. We all have memories, memories that are situated in the past. Our memories are the representations of absent things that get portrayed in the form of an image. A memory is not the real thing, it’s just an image of what the minds manifests. Drawing from memory we can begin to bridge the gap between art and the socio-historical dimensions of specific places. A memory can be a reconnection of a place, thus establishing authenticity of meaning, history and identities. This adherence to memory is represented in one of Rachel Whiteread’s most famous works House. She chose to carry out a concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian house – 193 Grove Road - that was supposed to be demolished due to city developments. The site-specific piece gives itself up to its environmental context by becoming determined or directed by it. The site demands the physical presence of the viewer drawing on ‘inextricable’ relationships between the work and the site. The work becomes one with the site, restructuring it both conceptually and perceptually. Its significant in the fact that the space actually used by the family who lived there is what now constitutes Whiteread’s piece. The complete shell including the doors and window panels were removed leaving behind only a smaller edifice of the original structure. The artwork integrates itself into the realm of the everyday, in attempt to readdress the event that occurred at the site. Hence, the former is serving the latter as a source of inspiration. Whiteread’s House shares a domestic past with no trace of nostalgia, becoming a memorial to a memory. The materiality of Whiteread’s House is a point of intersection between historical and memorial processes, it represents an irreversible past event, and a mere memory of what will never be present. Whiteread’s House invites us to look at the articulation of memory as a space between presence and absence and a dialogue between
Memory is not alien to us. We all have memories, memories that are situated in the past. Our memories are the representations of absent things that get portrayed in the form of an image. A memory is not the real thing, it’s just an image of what the minds manifests. Drawing from memory we can begin to bridge the gap between art and the socio-historical dimensions of specific places. A memory can be a reconnection of a place, thus establishing authenticity of meaning, history and identities. This adherence to memory is represented in one of Rachel Whiteread’s most famous works House. She chose to carry out a concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian house – 193 Grove Road - that was supposed to be demolished due to city developments. The site-specific piece gives itself up to its environmental context by becoming determined or directed by it. The site demands the physical presence of the viewer drawing on ‘inextricable’ relationships between the work and the site. The work becomes one with the site, restructuring it both conceptually and perceptually. Its significant in the fact that the space actually used by the family who lived there is what now constitutes Whiteread’s piece. The complete shell including the doors and window panels were removed leaving behind only a smaller edifice of the original structure. The artwork integrates itself into the realm of the everyday, in attempt to readdress the event that occurred at the site. Hence, the former is serving the latter as a source of inspiration. Whiteread’s House shares a domestic past with no trace of nostalgia, becoming a memorial to a memory. The materiality of Whiteread’s House is a point of intersection between historical and memorial processes, it represents an irreversible past event, and a mere memory of what will never be present. Whiteread’s House invites us to look at the articulation of memory as a space between presence and absence and a dialogue between