Rachel Whiteread returns to Gagosian’s Davies Street gallery this spring with Substitute, an exhibition of new sculptures and recent photographs opening on 26th March 2026.
The title reflects a core thread in Whiteread’s practice: the act of replacing absence with substance. Through casting, she transforms negative space into physical form — a process that has defined her work for more than three decades.
At the centre of the exhibition are a series of large wall-mounted reliefs made by pressing papier-mâché pulp onto weathered barn doors and sections of gates. The resulting impressions are then finished with pigmented silver and copper leaf, creating textured metallic surfaces that preserve the scars, grain and wear of the original structures. In contrast, two translucent resin casts of sash windows — tinted blue and pink — introduce a sense of lightness and transparency.
Whiteread has long worked with industrial materials such as concrete, resin and rubber alongside traditional sculptural media, including plaster and bronze. Across these forms, she captures the quiet traces of everyday life — marks of use, fragments of architecture and the overlooked spaces that shape our surroundings.
Papier-mâché, typically associated with craft or early sculptural experiments, plays a central role in the new works. Made from recycled paper pulp, the material carries its own layered histories while offering Whiteread a tactile link between painting and sculpture. Its textured surfaces retain subtle imprints of time and touch, while the metallic finishes evoke the cool sheen of metal in unexpected tones.
In the rear gallery, Whiteread presents a group of smaller sculptures cast in fibreglass — a material new to her practice — alongside a selection of photographs. The sculptures originate from objects the artist discovered while mudlarking on beach walks. Painted in bright colours reminiscent of seaside leisure, they sit together like a cluster of informal seats.
The accompanying photographs extend Whiteread’s long-standing fascination with quiet, overlooked moments. Documenting small alignments and chance encounters between objects, they echo the sculptural works in their attention to both form and the empty spaces around it.
Together, the sculptures and photographs form a meditation on memory, absence and the traces embedded in the built environment — reminding us how even the most ordinary surfaces can hold fragments of lived experience.
RACHEL WHITEREAD, Substitute, March 26th–May 16th, 2026, Gagosian Davies Street
Opening reception: Thursday, March 26th, 6PM–8PM
