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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
At Goodwood, Rachel Whiteread Is Redefining Sculpture Parks
Rachel Whiteread is used to her work provoking strong reactions. The 62-year-old artist won the Turner Prize in 1993 for her landmark sculpture,'House', a plaster cast of the inside of a Victorian terraced house in east London. Less than four months later, despite a public campaign to save it, it was torn down by Tower Hamlets Council. In 1996, her plans for a Holocaust memorial in Judenplatz, Vienna — a room constructed from casts of shelves lined with books, their spines turned inwards — created a political furore. On that one, sense prevailed, and it still stands. This summer, Whiteread, who was made a dame in 2019, will be the inaugural artist to have a solo show at Goodwood Art Foundation, a new sculpture park and gallery on the grounds of the Goodwood Estate in Sussex. Already, she has met with some local opposition. 'You make a decision about where something's going, and then suddenly a badger's moved in, or there's a squirrel in the way,' she says, sitting in her airy studio in Camden, north London, close to where she lives with her husband, the artist Marcus Taylor, with whom she has two sons. 'So there's been a bit of that going on,' she continues, 'but, having an enormous respect for nature, that's quite all right.' For an artist who's often associated with urban settings, Whiteread, who has clouds of soft curls and a friendly but no-nonsense manner, does have an unexpected interest in the bucolic. She was born in Ilford and went to school in London, then Brighton University and the Slade, but growing up she and her sisters were 'dragged all over the country' by her artist mother and geographer father. The idea of interacting with natural landscapes is 'definitely in me from my family', she says, and over the years she has produced a number of what she calls 'shy sculptures' — tucked-away installations that you might journey to, or happen upon: a cast of a boathouse on a Norwegian fjord; another of a wooden house in Kunisaki, Japan; the concrete ghost of a cabin on Governors Island in New York. At Goodwood Art Foundation, within grounds recently spruced up by garden designer extraordinaire Dan Pearson, she'll be exhibiting existing pieces including 'Detached II (2012)", a cast of a garden shed, and "Untitled (Pair) (1999)', twin tomb-like sculptures based on mortuary slabs, alongside a new work, 'Down and Up (2024-2025)', cast from the staircase of the former synagogue in which she and Taylor and the boys used to live in London's East End. 'When I made 'House', one of the things that really frustrated me was that I didn't really cast the staircase,' she says. 'I had to cut it away and cast around it, so the wooden part of the staircase was always left. It's hard to cast a staircase generally, because people are using it, but when we moved to Shoreditch there were two or three staircases in the building, so I cast them.' In the Goodwood Art Foundation's new indoor space, the Pavilion Gallery, she'll be showing photographs, too; she's always taken pictures, using them as a kind of sketchbook, but has shown them in public only rarely. Grouped in threes, they capture haphazard, quasi-sculptural compositions that have caught her eye: a flattened traffic cone; an unusual storm drain; a ring of oxidation on a tiled floor. They're intriguing, and often quietly absurd. Whiteread pulls out a photograph of a black rubbish bag that she spotted recently, strung up on the iron railings of a London townhouse. There's a small rip at the bottom, through which is visible a pair of perfect eggs. 'And there was not a single crack in them!' she says, delighted. When we meet, she's still a few weeks from installing the new show — which, as you might imagine, involves some serious haulage vehicles and some very big boxes — but the plan for it is very much in place: 'We're in the end game,' she says. Whiteread has, in the two-and-a-half year run-up, been able to enjoy some of Goodwood's other offerings, including its annual motoring event, Goodwood Festival of Speed, which, she says, was, 'very noisy, very smelly, but it was definitely interesting to sit in the VIP enclosure where the cars do those — whatever they do — weird turns in front of you. And the boys got to sit in these vintage F1 cars. It was good fun.' She says she has been warmly welcomed by Goodwood's owner, the Duke of Richmond ('very, very nice, and so is his wife, and actually the Duke's a very good photographer'), though rural idylls are not, apparently, Whiteread's spiritual home. She has a place in Wales that she's soon going to visit and 'de-mouse', but eventually the city always calls her back. 'I love the countryside, but after a while I'm banging my head against a tree — I need some grot!' Other cities are summoning her, too: in the next couple of years she'll have a show in Brussels, and will be installing pieces in Switzerland and Japan. 'I've been fairly consistent,' she says of her working life. 'I'm really very lucky to be able to do what I like doing.' Her oeuvre now involves photography, cast sculptures and also sculptures that are not cast: one of the indoor works at Goodwood Art Foundation will be a constructed piece, 'Doppelganger (2020-2021)', that has been built to look like a white shed being ripped apart. 'The older I've got, the more vocabulary I've got to use, so I'm just playing with that.' Whiteread's work, whatever form it takes, deals with memory, residue, decay and the inexorable passing of time. And it speaks to us. 'People get very moved by things I've made,' she says, matter-of-factly. It's a phenomenon that she finds rewarding. 'If it helps shape people's lives, or helps people deal with something, or think about something, that's a gift I can give. I'm not trying to trigger people, but I know that the work is personal and has a sensitivity to it, and generally these things move people, don't they?' The badgers, however, are staying put. Rachel Whiteread is at Goodwood Art Foundation, Chichester, from 31 May to 2 November; You Might Also Like The Best Men's Sunglasses For Summer '19 There's A Smartwatch For Every Sort Of Guy What You Should Buy For Your Groomsmen (And What They Really Want)
The Independent
27-02-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Young people outside London fear they'll ‘never succeed' as regional optimism hits new low
Young people living outside London are significantly more likely to feel pessimistic about their future, with many fearing they will never be able to afford a home, save for retirement, or earn enough to support a family, new data reveals. Exclusive statistics seen by The Independent show that young people in London answered every question about their financial prospects more optimistically than the national average. In contrast, those in the East and West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, Scotland, and Wales reported the lowest confidence levels. The findings come from The King's Trust's annual youth index, which measures the attitudes of 16-to 25-year-olds across Britain. Despite soaring property prices in the capital, young Londoners remain the most hopeful about one day owning a home, with only 25 per cent believing they never will. That figure jumps to 41 per cent in the East of England and 37 per cent in Wales, rising even higher in cities like Portsmouth, where 55 per cent doubt they'll ever be able to buy. Londoners are also less likely to believe they won't earn enough to support a family, with 23 per cent expressing concerns – 7 per cent lower than those in the East Midlands. Meanwhile, 23 per cent of young people in London fear they are 'going to fail in life', compared to a staggering 36 per cent in Wales and 34 per cent in the East Midlands. Similarly, just 25 per cent of young people in the capital believe they won't be as successful as their parents, while in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, the figure rises to 39 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively. The numbers are even higher in cities such as Liverpool (47 per cent), Bristol (47 per cent), and Portsmouth (45 per cent). 'Geographical limitations played a part in my career' Joe, 27, wanted to stay in Portsmouth where they grew up, but struggled to find a career path that suited them. After earning a first-class degree and a master's from Brighton University, Joe spent 12 months attending 41 job interviews without success. 'I've always believed in starting out local, but geographical limitations played a part in what opportunities I had,' they told The Independent. 'I still had to be near home for my parents and sister, and moving away from my social network would have been very negative. 'Creating different kinds of jobs needs to be the emphasis. It felt like the only options here were to either work in a cafe or in the military.' After dozens of rejections, Joe began to lose hope until they discovered Explore, a King's Trust wellbeing and personal development programme at the jobcentre. Joe credits the scheme with helping them regain the 'mental space' to continue applying for jobs and has since secured full-time employment in their desired field. The mental health toll of financial uncertainty The data also highlights the impact of financial fears on young people's mental health, with 41 per cent saying concerns about their future have worsened their wellbeing. In London, this falls to 33 per cent – 16 per cent lower than in the East Midlands. In Liverpool, 51 per cent of young people say financial stress has negatively affected their mental health. Emily, 21, from Leicester, is one of those affected. After leaving college at 19, she spent 18 months searching for jobs in graphic design and photography but faced repeated rejection. 'I thought I'd maybe get a job within a couple of months,' she said. 'It really hit me mentally. It felt like I was in a pit of worthlessness, thinking, 'Why don't people want me?' 'They would just reject me – I wouldn't even get a reason why. I changed my CV a lot, but it was always the same outcome. Rejected and ghosted.' Emily was determined to stay close to home in Leicester, ruling out job opportunities in London where the market is larger. 'Trying to get a job in London would have been very difficult. It's a really expensive city compared to Leicester, and I don't feel like employers would want someone who had to commute on the train each day, even if that is something I could do,' she said. Reflecting on the challenges facing her generation, she added: 'When it was my parents' time, it was so much easier to do things like get a house. But now, because of the economy and everything skyrocketing in price, it's just so much harder for young people. It feels impossible.' After months of frustration, Emily enrolled in a 12-week King's Trust programme to boost her employability skills, later joining the Get Into Health and Social Care programme, which provided her with hands-on experience. She has now secured a job in the NHS and says the course changed her life. 'I'm so happy I went for it. It helped me find my passion and a job that I love so much,' she said. 'I never thought I would find a role in the NHS, but look where I am now.' Jonathan Townsend, UK chief executive of The King's Trust, said: 'The King's Trust TK Maxx youth index highlights the deep uncertainty many young people feel about their futures. Concerns about job security and career prospects are negatively impacting young people's mental health and their confidence in achieving their life goals. 'Regional disparities exist for young people in accessing secure, good quality job opportunities and the support to move from unemployment into work, which is particularly acute for those living in communities facing the highest levels of deprivation. It is crucial that young people in this situation are given the levels of support needed to ensure they are not locked out of achieving their potential and having stable and fulfilling lives. 'Despite these challenges, we know young people remain determined to succeed. Working together to help young people access the support they need to get into work will not only transform their lives – but benefit the communities and the local economies they live in'.
