Growing old disgracefully: Rachel Whiteread reveals what a YBAs’ retirement home might look like
The Turner Prize winning UK artist Rachel Whiteread delivers pearls of wisdom in The Sunday Times, pointing out that Cabin (2016), located on Governors Island in New York harbour, is the work she’s most proud of. “I wanted it to look like the home of the Unabomber, a little sinister, so I cast lots of bronze detritus on the ground around it.” Does she see it as a political work? “Yes, partly because of where it is, next to the Statue of Liberty.”
The Dame of the British Empire also says that she is still friends with most of the other YBAs (Young British Artists)—except for Damien Hirst. “He’s off in a different stratosphere,” she told The Sunday Times. “We used to laugh about what we would be like when we got old and fantasise about setting up a YBAs’ old people’s home—which maybe we will still do, you never know. It would be full of great art and lots of big egos.”
Whiteread will show some of her most celebrated sculptures, such as Detached II (2012), alongside photographic work at the Goodwood Art Foundation in West Sussex, which launches 31 May.
