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RACHEL WHITEREAD |
In 2006, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery announced the joint purchase with the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, of Untitled (Domestic), 2002, a large-scale sculptural installation by the internationally renowned British artist Rachel Whiteread.
Whiteread has received critical acclaim for her unique body of work in which she transforms ordinary domestic items and proverbial spaces into discretely poignant objects that subvert the viewer's sense of traditional function, form, and space. Since the late 1980s, Whiteread has been using concrete, resin, rubber, and even dental plaster to cast sculptures from undeniably familiar household items and spaces such as air mattresses, bathtubs, sinks, the interiors of hot water bottles or the undersides of tables and chairs, all with the intention of emphasizing the more private aspects of domestic life and our relationship with these types of objects. Instead of making a highly detailed reproduction, Whiteread typically casts the negative space inside or around her initial subjects in order to achieve a ghostly impression of the original.
Untitled (Domestic) is the result of Whiteread's recent exploration of transient architecture and her ongoing examination of our interaction with the inconspicuous spaces we occupy each day. The monumental sculpture was realized by casting the fire escape staircase located at the Haunch of Venison Gallery in London, England, a three-story building from the late eighteenth century that was originally the home of Admiral Lord Nelson and is one of several staircase works the artist has completed to date. By reincarnating the staircase in its negative form and taking it out of its original context, this work invokes a disorienting sense of both recollection and loss for the viewer while, at the same time, realizes the artist's desire to bring together the purely formal and architectural qualities inherent to the sculptural medium. This seminal work by Whiteread will certainly feel right at home amongst the American minimalist objects in the Gallery’s collection, which the artist once commented were among her main influences; however, where minimalism is traditionally detatched in its approach, Whiteread’s work is warm and more connected to everyday life.
This is not the first work by Whiteread to enter the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art. The museum featured Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1995, in the 1995 Carnegie International exhibition and subsequently acquired her Untitled (Yellow Bath), 1996, a rubber and polystyrene sculpture cast from a bathtub. The museum also owns a number of works on paper by the artist. About the work, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art Richard Armstrong remarks that "Untitled (Domestic), 2002, is a great and engaging monument, and is beautifully complemented here at Carnegie Museum of Art by the extensive plaster cast collection assembled by Andrew Carnegie one hundred years ago."
While it may seem unconventional for museums to "share" ownership of an artwork, joint purchasing is becoming a common practice. As the price of contemporary art increases and artists continue to work in large-scale formats, storage and exhibition space are at a premium these days. Joint purchasing is a logical and creative solution for museums facing these issues. Even museums with larger purchasing endowments and more space such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, have forged joint-purchase relationships. In January 2007, they announced the purchase of American sculptor Chris Burden's Hell's Gate Bridge, 1998. Also, in 2004, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. announced the joint acquisition of Suspension of Disbelief (for Marine), 1991-92, by the pioneering video artist Gary Hill.
Whiteread's work will alternate annually between the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Carnegie Museum of Art as part of this new and exciting partnership.
– Holly E. Hughes, Associate Curator