One Hundred Spaces, 1997
Oh, Rachel Whiteread: how I adore thee. I love how she deals with spaces that we often ignore. It's melancholy and curious. Looking at these negative casts of the spaces underneath chairs, I feel like a child who has crawled under the furniture to hide from the world while giggling, listening to the adult conversations above and believing that no one knows we're there.
Whiteread's ability to deal with the forgotten extends from the playful to the poignant. I think the most accessible piece for wide audiences would be her Holocaust Memorial, Nameless Library. Revealed in 2000 in the Judenplatz in Vienna, it is a reference to the People of the Book, book burnings, and the plethora of knowledge that was wiped out by the Nazis -- a library that we will never have access to again.
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