- Museum number
- 1995,1104.1
- Description
-
Study for 'Floor', 1993; rectangular blocks set in herringbone pattern. 1993
Red ink and correction fluid on graph paper
- Production date
- 1993
- Dimensions
-
Height: 720 millimetres
-
Width: 500 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This sculptor bases her work on the forms, both exterior and interior, of the domestic environment, which she then casts in substances like concrete, plaster and rubber. This drawing is one of a series which evoke the herringbone pattern of the parquet flooring she found in the flat she was occupying in Berlin during 1992-3. This group of drawings are her first major series of works on paper.
This drawing was included in the exhibition 'Rachel Whiteread: Drawings' at the DAAD Galerie, Berlin, Nov/Dec, 1993, illustrated in the catalogue p. 59; also in 'Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawing, Past and Present, Selected by Michael Craig-Martin", Southampton City Art Gallery and tour (Jan. to Aug. 1994), illustrated in catalogue. It was following the latter exhibition that the drawing was acquired by the BM, thanks to the generous help of the artist and Karsten Schubert.
Label text from 2016-18, Sep-Jan touring exhibition, 'Lines of Thought'
This drawing is based on the close observation of a parquet floor in the flat in Berlin where Whiteread lived for a year from 1992 to 1993. She produced many exploratory drawings in order to examine this herringbone arrangement of interlocking shapes (cf. 2004,0601.45). Most were on graph paper and in many she employed correction fluid as a drawing material in its own right. Here she uses it to cover up the ghost of walls and a doorway, isolating the floor from its context and imbuing it with a monumental, self-supporting volume. In this way it is not strictly a study for sculpture, but a parallel work examining the same impulses that encouraged her to cast domestic spaces in concrete, plaster and rubber to explore their properties. The disjunction between the regular grid of the graph paper and the characterful lines of the drawing highlights its highly subjective nature in opposition to the reproductive fidelity of her casts.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited
1993 Nov-Dec, Berlin, D A A D Galerie, Rachel Whiteread: Drawings (illustrated in the catalogue p. 59)
1994, Jan-Aug, Southampton and tour, Drawing the Line
1995/6 Sep-Jan, BM, P&D, Recent Acquisitions 1991-95
2007 June-Sep, Bexhill-on-Sea, De La Warr Pavilion, A Proposal
2008/9 Sep-Jan, BM, British Sculptors' Drawings, no cat.
2010 Jan-May, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Rachel Whiteread, Drawings
2010 May-Aug, Dallas, Nasher Sculpture Center, Rachel Whiteread, Drawings
2010/11 Sep-Jan, London, Tate Britain, Rachel Whiteread, Drawings
2016 3 Sep - 6 Nov, Poole Museum, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 41
2017 1 Jan - 25 Feb, The Brynmor Jones Library Art Gallery, University of Hull, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 41
2017 12 Mar - 5 May, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 41
2017 May - Sep, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 41
2017-2018 Oct - Jan, RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 'Lines of thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to now', no. 41
- Acquisition date
- 1995
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1995,1104.1
