Demolished

Details

Rachel Whiteread (B. 1963)
Demolished
signed 'R. Whiteread' and numbered 'A', 'B' or 'C' (on the reverse) corresponding to the particular estate as listed on the title page; numbered '3/35' (on the colophon)
twelve duotone screenprints on Sommerset Satin paper
each: 19 x 29in. (48.3 x 73.2cm.)
Executed in 1996, this portfolio is no. 3 from an edition of 35 + 10AP. It is encased in a black buckram covered wooden box, and is accompanied by a title page and a colophon.

Provenance

Paragon Press, London.

Literature

'Art from the UK. Sammlung Goetz', Munich 1998 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, pp.160-163).
'Emotion. Young British and American Art from the Goetz Collection', Hamburg 1998 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p.85).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

In many ways, 'Demolished' can be seen as a reaction to the demolition of her own monumental work, 'House' from 1993: "I like the notion of the work being the mould of an explosion,, or maybe an 'implosion', like casting a black hole - Pompeii was the mould of an explosion." (R. Whiteread, in: 'Art from the UK', Muncih 1998, p.159.) In both works, 'House' and 'Demolished', Whiteread takes as her theme the demolition of housing property for the lower middle-class in poorer areas of London. Just as 'House' was a ghost of the building that once stood in its place, 'Demolished' depicts the process by which an object is removed from a particular space, while at the same time being forever present in the memories of individuals. These works, along with her 'Holocaust Memorial' in Vienna, demonstrates Whiteread's socio-political involvement and clearly place her within a category far more complex than mere neo-minimalism.

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