Dimensions
210 x 250 x 15mm
Rachel Whiteread's cast of a Victorian terraced house in London's East End was hailed as one of the greatest public sculptures made by an English artist this century. Commissioned by Artangel and Beck's, "House" was completed in the autumn of 1993. It attracted tens of thousands of visitors, generated impassioned debate and helped win Whiteread the 1993 Turner Prize. Despite a national outcry, "House's" life was short and it was demolished in January 1994.
Distinguished authors Jon Bird, Doreen Massey, Richard Shone, Iain Sinclair, Anthony Vidler and Simon Watney explore some of the historical, cultural and socio-political contexts in which "House" was built, seen and destroyed. A survey of articles, editorials, comments and cartoons which appeared in the local and national press maps the remarkable critical reception precipitated by a single work of art. Fully illustrated throughout, the book includes a sequence of photographic panoramas by John Davies which shows the transformation in time from an ordinary terraced home to an extraordinary contemporary sculpture and, finally, to an empty expanse of parkland.
Includes colour and black-and-white photographs.
