Saturday 7 October 2017

The Rachel Whiteread retrospective at Tate Britain - and why to visit again and again ! (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


7 October

This is a first reaction (work in progress) to the retrospective show for Rachel Whiteread that has just opened at Tate Britain, Millbank, London



Now, and from previous occasions of looking at work by Rachel Whiteread, one is aware that she presents a vivid and ever-continuing appreciation of the inner materiality of the substances with which she makes it : they cry out, in the exhibition at Tate Britain (@Tate), to be perceived - as the case may be - as being porous, reflective, semi-opaque, etc.

If we perceive form in her practice, but not how substance has influenced her in arriving at it, then we overlook what is intrinsic to it. For, porosity or the appearance of opacity are resolutely not merely optical qualities here, but ones that allude to the tactile nature of each piece, embodied in its capacity to look taut, pliant, rubbery, giving, and so on.


Penultimate weekend - closing chapters, three months on*... :





[...]


End-notes :

* Which is a surprise to realize - gigs or shows that live in one's head exist outside the mundanity of time ?




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

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