Iconic artist Rachel Whiteread is to conduct a major commission at the Whitechapel Gallery  in June 2012.  The artist, in her first permanent undertaking in the UK will transform the Whitechapel’s façade.  This work forms part of the London 2012 Festival, funded by the Art Fund.

Dating to 1901, the Arts and Crafts style building was originally planned to incorporate a frieze embodying the gallery’s message, to bring great art to the people of London.  Some 100 years later, Whiteread has been commissioned to complete the frieze, which has remained as a black rectangle since the building’s erection.

Rachel Whiteread, the darling of British contemporary art, came to the public’s attention in 1993.  Her works typically take the form of casts and focus on domesticated objects and negative space.  The controversial work House saw Whiteread become the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993.

House was a concrete cast of the interior of a condemned Victorian Terrace.  Exhibited at the location of the original house in East London, the work played with space and non-space.  Fireplaces protruded, doorknobs receded.  The piece highlights the body’s contact with objects and the space they occupy.   Everything, even air, becomes palpable.

As part of the YBA movement, Whiteread’s work has always been considered controversial.  It is these controversies, her foothold in British art and nativity to East London that has afforded her this new opportunity.

Whitehead’s commission for the Whitechapel Gallery will draw on the existing building.  Casts are to be taken from existing architectural features, and worked into the Tree of Life motif, which is present on the upper façade.

The Tree of Life motif plays on the interconnectedness of life.  It illustrates the idea that all life forms are related.  Whiteread’s plans to work negative casts of the existing windows into the motif, highlights her continued fascination with space.  Negative space becomes an object.  Air becomes palpable.  Objects and space take on a universality of stuff.

The commission will see The Whitechapel Gallery play a central role in the London 2012 Festival.  It will also afford the gallery a legacy to be enjoyed for many years to come.   This work’s outcome may be uncertain, but the controversy surrounding it is sure. Watch this space.

Rachel Whiteread, Whitechapel Gallery, June 2012.