Water Tower Project

Location

Country: USA
City: New York
Place: British Consulate-General

‘Water Tower Project’ is a study for a public sculpture commission that Rachel Whiteread undertook in New York in 1998. Supported by The Public Art Fund, ‘Water Tower’ was her first public sculpture in the United States. A translucent resin cast of the interior space of a wooden water tank, it was cast in a colourless polyurethane resin, the translucency and texture of which were affected by changing shifts of daylight. Situated alongside two functioning water tanks, the sculpture was visible from street level at the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street throughout June 1999.

Before this project, Whiteread had completed ‘House’, her famous but controversial sculpture based on a cast of the interior spaces of an abandoned house in London’s East End (destroyed in 1994). Although she was reluctant to become involved in another public project, she was drawn to the iconic status and ubiquity of the New York water towers. Whiteread made her name by creating works of art that are familiar to us, but which prompt us to reconsider the world from a new perspective. ‘Water Tower Project’ explores the ambiguity between a sculpture that is physically present yet, paradoxically, ephemeral. ‘Water Tower’ is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Rachel Whiteread was born in London and studied at Brighton Polytechnic and the Slade School of Art. One of the most established artists of her generation (labelled by the media ‘YBAs’, or Young British Artists), she is known for her sculptures of negative spaces of domestic objects. She was the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993 and in 1997 represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. She has produced several commissions, including 'Monument' (2001) for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth in London and 'Embankment' (2005–06) at Tate Modern. Her work is represented in international public collections from London to Sydney. Whiteread was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2006 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2019.

Places

United States of America, New York

Subjects

ladder, topography, townscape/cityscape, water tower

Materials & Techniques

acrylic varnish, screenprint

Artist

Rachel Whiteread (1963 - )

Title

Water Tower Project

Edition

27/35

Date

1998

Medium

Screenprint with acrylic varnish

Dimensions

height: 63.50 cm, width: 50.90 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Anthony d'Offay Gallery, March 1998

Inscription

below image: 27/35 / Water Tower Project / R. Whiteread

Provenance

the artist; purchased from Anthony d'Offay Gallery 1998.

GAC number

17316