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For immediate release Public Art Fund presents? Rachel
Whiteread's a translucent resin cast of a New
York City water tank On view June 1998 - November 2000 New York, NY -- On Wednesday, June 10th, the Public Art Fund opened its most ambitious project to date: Water Tower, British artist Rachel Whiteread's first public sculpture in the United States. Water Tower is a translucent resin cast of the interior of a once functioning, 12' 2" (high) x 9' (diameter) wooden water tank, the largest such cast ever created with this material. The wooden tank served as a mold for the resin and once removed, a frozen monolithic form was revealed. At the beginning of June, the hollow cast will be raised seven stories to rest upon the dunnage (steel tower frame) of a Soho rooftop and remain visible from street level at the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street for one year. Situated among two functioning water tanks, Water Tower is described by the artist as a "jewel in the Manhattan skyline". On a cloudy day, the weathered surface of the original tank's interior, will be visible from street level, providing a ghostly form of its previous structure. In bright sunlight the translucent resin will become a beacon of refracted light, and at night the unlit sculpture will disappear against the darkened sky. Poetic, yet incongruous, Whiteread's Water Tower powerfully represents a deep felt need for public sculpture to be physically present yet, paradoxically, ephemeral. Whiteread was approached by the Public Art Fund four years ago, shortly after the explosive public interest in House, her concrete casting of an East London row house for which the artist received the prestigious Turner Prize. Whiteread's House was a natural extension of her inverted castings of domestic objects such as mattresses, chairs, tables and water bottles that grew in scale to include the cast of a single room, Ghost, which was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1994.
Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower is Sponsored by Beck's. As a visitor to New York in 1994 and 1995, Whiteread researched many sites and public locations throughout the city. The constant flux, noise and movement of the city cautioned the artist against locations most commonly associated with public sculpture. In addition to the physical and psychological barrage that New York City offers the visitor, Whiteread was also preoccupied by the possibility of a public sculpture that could maintain a presence within the urban environment without imposing its own physicality on a community in which the artist is not a participant. While walking under the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge the artist noticed the skyline dotted with wooden water towers. These vernacular, quintessentially New York structures, suggested a possibility to further explore the significance of anonymous architecture as a sculptural form. How Water Tower was created Rachel Whiteread Biography Technical Support Special thanks to Richard Silver, President of American Pipe and Tank Lining Co., Inc., Walkabout Visualization Resources, Brenna Beirne, Luhring Augustine, Anthony d'Offay Gallary, and the building owners: Joe Beirne, Catherine Tice, and Ellen Weissbrod.
Project Sponsorship About Beck's New York Arts Program In 1997 Beck's launched the New York Arts Program consolidating their reputation by sponsoring the 1997 Whitney Biennial and the multi-media performance/ CD- Rom project, Fantastic Prayer, by Tony Oursler, Constance Dejong and Steven Vitiello, at the Dia Center for the Arts. A distinctive limited edition Beck's beer bottle was created by Tony Oursler to commemorate this event. Beck's sponsorship of Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower, marks their second collaboration with the Public Art Fund, following their involvement with Barbara Kruger's Bus project last year. Project Support About Public Art Fund Summer exhibition schedule: In addition to Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower, Public Art Fund's summer season includes Rodin at Rockefeller Center, on view through August 31. The Channel Gardens, leading from 5th Avenue to the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, will be transformed into a formal French Garden, creating an exquisite setting to view eight of Auguste Rodin's most celebrated works, on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection. - 4 - The season concludes on July 1, with Tony Smith in the City, a first time collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art (on view through September 22). Three monumental sculptures by this post war American artist will be installed at Doris C. Freedman Plaza (5th Ave. & 60th St.), Seagram Plaza (Park Ave. & 53rd St.) and Bryant Park (6th Ave. & 40th St.) to coincide with MoMA's retrospective, Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor (curated by Robert Storr, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture). Current projects of the Public Art Fund include: 9 to 5 at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, featuring artists: Cristian Alexa, Martha Bush, Arnaldo Morales, Roxy Paine, Lincoln Tobier, Brian Tolle and Tom Otterness; The Roots and Wings Garden by mother daughter artist-team Alison and Betye Saar at P.S. 152 in Woodside, Queens; and Roy Lichtenstein's monumental steel sculpture, Modern Head, at Battery Park City.
The Fabrication of Water Tower Working with staff from American Pipe and Tank Lining Co., Inc., Whiteread selected a 12'2" x 9' (d) yellow cedar tank that was originally located on 72nd Street in Manhattan, because she wanted the woods rough grain to be picked-up in the cast. Carefully preserved upon its removal from its original roof top, the tank was reassembled by company technicians in the project studio. Public Art Fund next secured Charles Hickok, an expert model maker, to work closely with Whiteread to design the fabrication process and oversee the project team of ten. Water Tower is the largest cast to be fabricated in a urethane resin product created by BJB Enterprises, a company based in Tustin, California. Engineers from BJB Enterprises worked with Hickok and Mark Hage Engineering, who structurally engineered the piece to ensure successful fabrication. Following 6 months of studio preparation, the casting in mid-May, will take a mere three hours to complete. To prevent any possibility of leaking from the tank while the resin is being poured, the exterior of the wooden tank was covered in several layers of fiberglass. On the inside, the wood staves were cleaned, sealed, and "released" -- covered in a thin layer of material that facilitates removing the wood upon the completion of the casting. The walls of Water Tower will actually be only 4" wide, making it necessary to fabricate a fiberglass "core" for the tank as well. Once the core is installed, the tank will be inverted and cast upside down using twenty-eight, 55-gallon drums of heated resin. After the cast has cured for four days, the inner core and outside planks will be carefully apart, reveling the sculpture. At the end of May, the 11,500 pound Water Tower will be lifted
eight stories in the air by crane and set onto a steel rooftop truss at
the corner of West Broadway and Grand Street. The piece will be visible
from street level for at least one year. # # # Contact:
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