It’s a busy year for Rachel Whiteread, the UK artist known for her monumental House (1993-94), a life-sized cast of the interior of a condemned terraced house in London’s East End. A survey of her sculptures, drawings and documentary material is due to open at Tate Modern this autumn (12 September-4 February 2018), but a more homely work called Place (Village) (2006-08), comprising 150 vintage dolls’ houses, is due to go on permanent display at the V&A Museum of Childhood in east London from 25 March. “The houses will be lit from within, but deserted, their emptiness evoking haunting memories and melancholy,” a spokeswoman for the museum says. The dolls’ houses were all bought from antiques shops or on websites such as eBay. The work was first shown at the Madre museum in Naples in 2007—the bustling, spirited Italian city reminded Whiteread of Hackney, apparently.
