Rachel Whiteread's Tate Britain retrospective explores memory through repetitive casting of negative spaces

Rachel Whiteread's retrospective at Tate Britain presented three decades of her distinctive artistic practice focused on casting negative spaces. The exhibition, which ran from 12 September 2017 to 21 January 2018, featured works created through repetitive casting of domestic objects and architectural elements using materials including concrete, plaster, resin, glass, rubber, and wax. Whiteread's approach transforms the voids around everyday items into tangible forms that paradoxically preserve absence. Works like Untitled (Book Corridors) (1997–98) cast the spaces between library shelves rather than the shelves themselves, revealing book pages instead of spines. The Torso series (1991–99) renders the emptiness inside hot-water bottles through various materials. Untitled (Stairs) (2001) presents a concrete sculpture of two facing stair flights that challenges perception of positive and negative space. The exhibition included rarely shown works on paper that reveal Whiteread's abstract tendencies, with references to artists like Richard Tuttle and Agnes Martin. Recent translucent-resin casts of doors and window frames, along with papier-mâché shed facades, appeared less poignant than earlier works according to the review. The retrospective traveled to Belvedere 21 in Vienna, where it remained on view through 29 July 2018. Whiteread's entire career has centered on variations of this single approach to capture memory's essence through material transformation of absence.