cast resin

June 1998 - November 2000

visible from street level at the corner of
West Broadway and Grand Street

In June 1998, the Public Art Fund inaugurated its most ambitious project to date: Water Tower, British artist Rachel Whiteread's first public sculpture in the United States. Water Tower, a translucent resin cast of the interior of a 12'2" high by 9' wide wooden water tank, was raised 7 stories to rest upon the steel tower frame of a SoHo rooftop. Water Tower was visible from street level at the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street. Situated among two functioning water tanks, it was described by the artist as a "jewel in the Manhattan skyline." On a cloudy day, the weathered surface of the original tank's interior was visible, providing a ghostly form. In bright sunlight the translucent resin became a beacon of refracted light, and at night the unlit sculpture disappeared against the darkened sky. Poetic yet incongruous, Whiteread's Water Tower powerfully represented a need for public sculpture to be physically present yet ephemeral.

Water Tower is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Artist Bio
Rachel Whiteread was born in London in 1963 and continues to live and work there. She was educated at Brighton Polytechnic and the Slade School of Art. Following a series of solo and group exhibitions--Metropolis in Berlin's Martin Gropius Bau (1992), Doubletake at London's Hayward Gallery (1992) and Documenta 9--Whiteread achieved international recognition in 1993 for her first public art commission, House: a concrete cast of the interior architectural space of an entire East London row house. In that same year she also became the first woman to be awarded the Tate Gallery's prestigious Turner Prize. In addition to many exhibitions at museums and galleries throughout the world, including the British Pavilion at the 1997 Venice Biennale, Whiteread has pursued an interest in public projects through many commissions, including one for the Holocaust Memorial in Vienna.

Sponsorship
Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower was sponsored through Beck's New York Arts Program. It was also made possible through the support of the Charles Engelhard Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, Werner H. and Sarah-Ann Kramarsky, The Silverweed Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Challenge Initiative, and friends of the Public Art Fund.

Location
Water Tower was located on the rooftop of a building on Grand Street, visible from the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street.