FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
 

Rachel Whiteread

October 30 – December 18, 1999

Luhring Augustine is pleased to present an exhibition of new sculptures by Rachel Whiteread opening on October 30 and running through December 18, 1999.  This show of two major pieces will be Whiteread’s fourth New York show with Luhring Augustine. 

With this exhibition, Rachel Whiteread continues her exploration of spaces and objects while her choice of subjects continues to demonstrate an ongoing physical interrogation of the body’s rituals of life and death.  The major work in the main gallery will mark a turning point in Whiteread’s development, as it will be the first significant body of sculpture that the artist has executed in bronze. Cast from the form of a porcelain mortuary slab, and extended to include the negative space to the floor, these nine pairs consist of a concave and convex component.  These works represent a unique distillation of the bathtub and plinth-like forms that possess the refined sensibility of the minimalist aesthetic.

The second gallery will house one large piece called Untitled (Library), which consists of two plaster bookcases, one mounted on the wall and one freestanding.  The bookshelves are cast and then the books removed so the result is an installation of library stacks, showing the negative imprints of rows of books with residue of the original volumes captured in the plaster.

Rachel Whiteread has completed the Water Tower Project for the New York Public Art Fund last year, and is currently working on The Judenplatz Holocaust memorial in Vienna, and a public sculpture for Trafalgar Square in London.  She has a long list of international distinctions, from the Turner Prize in 1993, to solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel (1994), the ICA Boston and Philadelphia (1995), the Reina Sofia (1996), and the Tate Gallery (1997/98).  Her work is housed in museum and private collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

For more information please contact Claudia Altman-Siegel at 212-206-9100 or look on our website at www.luhringaugustine.com.