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RACHEL

 

With preference for the monolith

her work sits proud

beyond the element of form

beyond the canvas edge.

 

So private and so palpable

the space beneath her chair

and yet a single idea cast

 beside the wharf

her House of 1983

existing now as memory.

 

A library etched in absent books

the  Holocaust In bunker form

that haunts and contrasts with

the cabin in its restful cast

observing empty space.

 

The weightless luminosity

encapsulated high above

the nothingness of empty form

solidified within the square

above all human presence

 

She peeled the light

she cast the dark

her work adjudged

both best and worst.

 

 

 

Michael Edwards © December 2017

 

 

 

 

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This piece describes the work of one of the UKs leading artists: the sculptress Rachel Whiteread who, in separate polls held in the same year, was voted both best artist and worst artist.   She is renowned for casting spaces in concrete and this poem refers to the following: a collection of sculptures representing the space beneath chairs, her house of 1983 in the east end of London which was subsequently pulled down, the Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, the cabin on Governors Island New York,  and the luminous sculpture which was a repeat of the form of the plinth beneath it in Trafalgar Square.

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©31 December 2017 - 8:35am — MichaelEdwards