ABSTRACT
Rachel Whiteread's casting technique is blatantly a means of mechanical reproduction, and her tactics in using it reiterate the work of other artists. Whiteread's practice also suggests several comparisons to the manufacture of books: printing is involved; narratives are implied; absences are represented. Rachel Whiteread's casts are posed as one would expect in a public exhibition, each commanding its own space; yet their arrangement also recalls the domestic interiors from which most of them originated. Whiteread's embrace of influence gives her something in common with artists of 'post-modern nostalgia' such as Gary Hume, Glenn Brown, or the less well-known Ryan Durrant, who reproduces old masters in monochrome acrylic, making the paint bear their stamp like sealing wax. Whiteread's work has always hybridised sculpture with other forms of art: representing space, it occupies territory that was once the preserve of painting; using casts, it colonises photography.
