Rachel Whiteread

Description

This is a one-tenth scale maquette for the sculpture installed on the forth plinth. The purity and understated elegance of a simple cast of the Trafalgar Square plinth realised in crystal-clear resin and placed upside-down on the stone plinth, is typical of her work. Her customary simplicity focuses the viewer's attention completely on her concept and on the subject, which are inseparably linked. The plinth is both her subject-matter and the object of her sculpture. The intellectual content of Rachel Whiteread's work is as rewarding as its visualisation. Although the viewer is able to see partially through the translucent plinth in the square, also reflects and refracts light, resulting in the sculpture becoming truly part of its environment. Similarly the temporary and controversial House 1993-94, a cast of the complete interior of a condemned terrace house in Bow, was completely of its location. Rachel Whiteread has said of her sculpture for Trafalgar Square, 'After spending some time in Trafalgar Square observing the people, traffic, pigeons, architecture, sky and fountains, I became acutely aware of the general chaos of Central London life. I decided that the most appropriate sculpture for the plinth would be to make a "pause": a quiet moment for the space.'