RACHEL WHITEREAD - EMBANKMENT

RACHEL WHITEREAD (1963-)

To make a sculpture in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern is an enormous challenge. The space is like no other 'gargantuan and enveloping. I hope to challenge the space by developing a degree of intimacy, which somehow relates to all our lives.' Rachel Whiteread

The internationally renowned sculptor, Rachel Whiteread is to be the latest artist to take on the challenge of Tate Modern's vast Turbine Hall in autumn 2005, following in the footsteps of Bruce Nauman's haunting sound installation Raw Materials. Whiteread is an appropriate choice for the commission as some of her best-known works have seen her engaged in a dialogue with architecture and public space. Her first large-scale public project, House, in 1993 was a concrete cast of a nineteenth-century terraced house in the East End of London that during the relatively short period of its existence became an international icon. She has since completed further site-specific projects, including the hauntingly simple Holocaust Memorial in Judenplatz, Vienna; Water Tower in New York; and Monument, an inverted clear glass plinth installed on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. The physical representation of memory and absence is key to Whiteread's work and, by frequently destroying the original object in the casting process, she explores the theme of loss.

This unique publication will follow the creative process of Whiteread's installation in the Turbine Hall, from inception through to completion. With stunning illustrations and photography throughout, this will be a fascinating record of what promises to be one of the most challenging commissions yet faced by this intriguing artist.