Dame Rachel Whiteread (British, b.1963)

Dame Rachel Whiteread (British, b.1963)
Double, Double Plinth
gouache and pencil
31.5 x 50.5 cm. (12 3/8 x 19 7/8 in.)
Executed in 1999

Provenance
With Gagosian Gallery, London, from whom purchased by the present owner

Exhibited
Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Rachel Whiteread: Drawings, 31 Jan-1 Feb 2010; this exhibition toured to Dallas, Nasher Sculpture Centre, 22 May-15 Aug 2010 and London, Tate Britain, 8 Sep 2010-16 Jan 2011

Literature
Allegra Pesenti, Rachel Whiteread Drawings, Hammer Museum and DeMonico Books, 2010, p.83, cat.no.38 (col.ill)

“My drawings are a diary of my work”
(Rachel Whiteread)

Rachel Whiteread is known for her monumental sculpture from the controversial Judenplatz (2000) housed in Vienna to her Turner Prize winning House (1993).

Whilst Whiteread is known for these large works, monumental in materiality, scale and subject matter, her drawings are quiet intimate examples of her working practice. The present lot, Double, Double Plinth (1999) is no exception to this.

It was noted that in 1992-93 during a residency program in Berlin, Whiteread began dedicating herself more to her drawings and her working practice on paper. The exhibition featuring this work highlights how drawing consistently remained a fundamental principle and method in her artistic practice throughout her career. Many of the works within the show had never been seen in a public gallery. The exhibition toured to Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas and to Tate Britain’s London, demonstrating how despite best known for larger sculpture, Whiteread’s drawings are significant in their own right. Her drawings are unique and special given their multifaceted function as preparatory sketches for her sculptures and standalone artworks in their own right. Space, absence and memory are key themes in both Whitered’s works on paper and sculptures.

In this present work Whiteread explores notions of negative space. Double, Double Plinth achieves this through its subtle colour and soft materiality of gouache and pencil. It is unclear whether Untitled (Trafalgar Square Plinth), (1999) also known as Inverted Plinth directly corresponding with this particular work on paper, or whether Double Plinth is a reoccurring theme based on the fact it explores space and negative space. Other iterations of the ‘double plinth’ appear in Whiteread’s oeuvre, namely Untitled (Double Rubber Plinth) (1996).

Such examples employ the inverted form of the plinth to explore ideas of spatial reversal and negative space. Whether or not the work on paper served as a preparatory study for the sculpture, both pieces share a conceptual approach which centres on inversion and absence. In the sculptural work especially, the use of transparent resin and the upside-down replication of the plinth transform the piece into a powerful anti-monument, challenging traditional notions of public statuary and commemoration.