Rachel Whiteread's Substitute at Gagosian London: Casting Absence into Sculpture

Key facts

• Rachel Whiteread's exhibition Substitute was held at Gagosian's Davies Street gallery in London from March 26 to May 16, 2026.
• The exhibition featured new sculptures and recent photographs.
• Whiteread's casting process reverses conventional sculptural logic by casting the space an object occupies or encloses.
• Wall-mounted reliefs were made by pressing papier-mâché pulp onto weathered wooden barn doors and gate sections, then finished with pigmented silver or copper leaf in aluminium frames.
• Two transparent resin casts of sash windows in blue and pink hues were also included.
• The title Substitute refers to the artist's use of one material to echo another and to replacing negative space with physical substance.
• Gagosian identifies absence, memory, and loss as recurring concerns in Whiteread's practice.
• The exhibition has closed, but its themes remain relevant to discussions about architecture, domestic memory, and objects' relationships to human lives.