Embankment (2005–2006)
In spring 2004, she was offered the annual
Unilever Series commission to produce a piece for
Tate Modern's vast
Turbine Hall, delaying acceptance for five to six months until she was confident she could conceive of a work to fill the space
[1]. Throughout the latter half of September 2005 and mid-way into October her work
Embankment was installed and was made public on 10 October. It consists of some 14,000 translucent, white
polyethylene boxes (themselves casts of the inside of cardboard boxes) stacked in various ways; some in very tall mountain-like peaks and others in lower (though still over human height), rectangular, more levelled arrangements. They are fixed in position with adhesive. She cited the end scenes of both
Raiders of the Lost Ark and
Citizen Kane as visual precursors; she also spoke of the death of her mother and a period of upheaval which involved packing and moving comparable boxes.
[23] It is also thought that her recent trip to the
Arctic is an inspiration, although critics counter that white is merely the colour the polyethylene comes in, and it would have added significantly to the expense to dye them. The boxes were manufactured from casts of ten distinct cardboard boxes by a company that produces grit bins and traffic bollards.
[24]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Whiteread
