Rachel Whiteread in Trafalgar Square

Rachel Whiteread, the London-based sculptor, following the success of her dramatic Holocaust Memorial, inserted – to initial opposition – in Vienna's Judenplatz, was approached in London by the Royal Society of Arts Committee chaired by the energetic and innovative Prue Leith. Following the invitation to provide a sculpture for the empty plinth, she visited Trafalgar Square on foot, noting also the superb presence of the Cenotaph by Sir Edwin Lutyens nearby. But, Whiteread had to surmount major technical complexities with the resin material utilised. The transparent quality of the material was only perfected for casting with some difficulty after trial and error. However, now 'Monument', as it is entitled, weighing twenty tonnes, is fully installed, and simply revealed as a 'monument to a plinth'. Whiteread's own style is modest and reticent, and she has a firm dislike of pigeons. These may also find a foothold on the translucent resin surface hard to achieve. In return, a fair amount of cleaning will be necessitated as the pigeons overfly.

Whiteread has advanced her technique of casting still further with this work. But then her metier has always been one of casting in various materials, from student days at Brighton School of Art, onwards. A most famous work, 'House', set on green space in London's East End, was ultimately bulldozed by a short-sighted council. This was a major error of judgement, since the work would by now be worth several hundred thousand pounds to an interested museum. A Turner Prize winner, Whiteread emerged from too-ready classification by curators and critics as 'YBA', to pursue her own individual course as a lone artist of major talent today.