Rachel Whiteread won the Turner Prize (1st woman to do so) in 1993 with ‘House’. Who can not admire the boldness of the idea of filling a house full of concrete and then taking it apart to expose the space within? Some time in the 1970s it became the fashion to ‘draw the space’ rather than the object and she took this concept to the Nth degree. Waldemar Januszczak of the Times wrote a rave review of this exhibition, so I thought I should go. I’m afraid I didn’t like the exhibition, as I don’t think her work looks its best in a domestic situation. In fact I don’t like the small works at all, and that includes the Doors the Januszczak raves about.

Doors

I much prefer the more monumental works, which is where she has made her Name. Januszczak says in his Times review  that people liked ‘House’ because they understood the house’s plucky resistance to the demolition of Old London that was going on all around it at that time. (It was the last of a row of houses which was being demolished).

Yes there is an emotional potency in her work which comes out very strongly in ‘House’. And it is there in her ‘shy works’ too – these are works situated in the landscape which it takes a journey to get to. Somehow these works exist in the landscape against all the odds and that is emotional to think about. But I don’t feel it in the small works such as’ Torso’ – however ‘pretty’ the content, that is the resin in-fill.

Nothing can take away my admiration for ‘House’ and I feel it deserved to win the Turner prize, but I wonder if the basic idea behind it ( and all other works she has done since) is not same, ie an exploration of the space within using different materials. And that applies to Torso and  ‘100 spaces’.  What she calls the process of exploring forgotten space. That in itself to me is not emotional, and having been done once is not interesting, but the emotional quality of the larger works is. I dont agree with Januszczak that Whiteread is a ‘Softie’ but I do agree that her work has emotion and that is what makes it interesting. Those hard angular lumps of concrete which she has produced have the ability to convey human emotion – that is unexpected and truly interesting.

 

But this exhibition, except for the video showing at the start,  (about the making of ‘House’) is disappointing and I would not recommend it. The small works are not interesting in a domestic situation and somehow the whole space is colourless. Yes, the Staircase is ‘fun’ but she has done that kind of thing before.

Staircase

The holocaust memorial library is there but out of context. It would be better to buy a book about Whiteread’s public works, or visit one of the ‘Shy’ works in situ to get a feel of what she is capable of. She made her name doing public commissions and it is easy to see why.