On seeing Rachel Whiteread

the casts of the beehive undersides of chairs is beautiful and some how evocative of my childhood – translucent colours of exotic soaps or perspex skateboard decks and wheels full of trapped light – desperate to touch them but the non-touching is a type of touching.

But once in I spent very little time in front of each piece. I marvelled at the craftpersonship of the casts of course and at the technical audacity and ambition. I think the sheer density of the effect of the holocaust memorial is overwhelming. The demolished house cast joyous, magnificent and tender.

But mattresses and hot water bottles whilst fun are less demanding of my time and i find myself outside after 10 minutes thinking that she needed to diversify somehow.

The idea of flipping void and solid, representing space as object

Contextual Research: Plinth

Plinth as altar for art object as sacrificial offering to be carved up by viewers

Plinth as dais for objects to be approached and worshipped in awe and wonder

Plinth as symbol of the act of generosity and emergence

Plinth for status, statue, standing

Plinth as soap box

Plinth as pulpit

Plinth to personify, lend identity, anthropomorphise

Plinth to raise object to convenient height to encourage interaction and motion

Plinth as obstacle

Plinth to involve, include

Plinth to ‘denigrate, ridicule, exclude’ (A. Rogers)

Plinth absented to involve, include (Gormsley)

Plinth as instrument to transform, elevate object into art

Plinth as art object (Brancusi’s Endless Column umbilically supporting sky from earth or earth from sky)

Plinth as masculine, penetrative symbol of power and control

Plinth as tool for negotiation

Plinth holding up object

Plinth transferring load to ground

Plinth as tabula rasa (4th Plinth Project co-opted as advertising platform for London)

Plinth left empty by torn down statues, awaiting the next tyrant, symbol of the repeated failure of utopian revolution

Plinth as stage

Plinth as sculpture

Plinth as subject of research