Sliced Bunker

Bunker 599 + 603

This project lays bare two secrets of the New Dutch Waterline (NDW), a military line of defence in use from 1815 until 1940 protecting the cities of Muiden, Utrecht, Vreeswijk and Gorinchem by means of intentional flooding. 

A seemingly indestructible bunker with monumental status is sliced open. The design thereby opens up the minuscule interior of one of NDW’s 700 bunkers, the insides of which are normally cut off from view completely. In addition, a long wooden boardwalk cuts through the extremely heavy construction. It leads visitors to a flooded area and to the footpaths of the adjacent natural reserve. The pier and the piles supporting it remind them that the water surrounding them is not caused by e.g. the removal of sand but rather is a shallow water plain characteristic of the inundations in times of war.

The sliced up bunker forms a publicly accessible attraction for visitors of the NDW. It is moreover visible from the A2 highway and can thus also be seen by tens of thousand of passers-by each day. The project is part of the overall strategy of Rietveld Landscape | Atelier de Lyon to make this unique part of Dutch history accessible and tangible for a wide variety of visitors. 

Rachel Whiteread's Drawings

A lot of the works that I've been making over the years have been part of a cyclical process. Things have happened, things branch off, things crop up that I haven't thought about. I often feel a cycle is incomplete and need to tread the same path again. I've been teaching myself a language for the past fifteen years, and the utilization of that language can take on many forms.

--Rachel Whiteread 

Using various materials to articulate the negative space surrounding or contained by objects, Whiteread has elaborated various approaches to casting and impression as subject, process, and vehicle for content. Her daily practice is based on a persistent duality: a pragmatic approach to the materials and making of art coupled with a fascination for the psychologically charged associations and traces of human contact borne by and embedded in objects and environments. 

Whiteread’s frequent use of graph paper for her drawings recalls the notations of her Minimalist predecessors. Her forms, too, play off the geometry of the grid, but there are fundamental differences from the function-driven and emotional detachment of Minimalist drawings. For example, Dan Flavin’s graph paper drawings were empirical records of the components and colors of his installations whereas Whiteread’s are as much about evocation as representation and her choice of colored paper is as important as the drawing itself. 

Rachel Whiteread was born in London in 1963. She studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic from 1982-1985 and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1985-1987. 

More from :http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010-09-07_rachel-whiteread/