Translucent and Opaque: Rachel Whiteread's 'Ghost, Ghost II'

Rachel Whiteread's recent exhibition at Tate Britain included this quite astonishing piece. The most bizarre scale model or cast that one can imagine; it is positively spectral both clearly inhabiting this world but also seemingly shifting in and out of our consciousness as our perception of the exterior and internal spaces are constantly confused and confounded.

Made in polyurethane and light purple in colour it has the amazing quality of being both translucent and opaque. The effect is extraordinary because perception of the interior is never consistent. Visibility depends on the angle of sight and the specific point being viewed. It is possible to glimpse some of the interior - a staircase; a room; a corridor - but never to perceive it fully.

There are also shafts of real space intruding into the material that offer sight lines through which one has to squint to try to see more clearly what is happening inside the structure. This is generally a forlorn hope. One may simply see right through to the other side. It is as if the sculpture mocks attempts at seeing properly because all that one can see clearly is through to the world outside the building.

Then there are internal reflections as light is refracted through the structure. So the building contains a palimpsest of itself superimposed on its own internal surfaces. 

The structure has the modular look of being put together but it also feels complete as if there were no other way that these parts could possibly have been assembled. But the assembly is almost mischievous as if it could only be like it is now but that is not to say that at some future point it could equally convince as something subtly different.  It put me in mind of the deeply worrying House of Leaves :

Upon returning from a trip to Seattle, the Navidson family discovers a change in their home. A closet-like space shut behind an undecorated door appears inexplicably where previously there was only a blank wall. A second door appears at the end of the closet, leading to the children's room. As Navidson investigates this phenomenon, he finds that the internal measurements of the house are somehow larger than external measurements. Initially there is less than an inch of difference, but as time passes the interior of the house seems to expand while maintaining the same exterior proportions. A third and more extreme change asserts itself: a dark, cold hallway opens in an exterior living room wall that should project outside into their yard, but does not. Navidson films the outside of the house to show where the hallway should be but clearly is not. 

An equally disturbing echo is that of the eldritch shape shifting that seemingly responds to the perception of the viewer in Annihilation. This is particularly brought home by the fact that viewing Ghost, Ghost II from particular angles does indeed affect how it is seen. It is almost as if the house does indeed respond to the viewer.

One could look at this piece for hours. It is endlessly fascinating. 

A spectral shape shifter hovering at the very boundaries of perception.