Whiteread's MFA exhibit creates a disquieting mood for visitors

                The best museum exhibits are those that elicit an emotional response from the viewer. Whether it's inspiration, humor, joy or sadness, museums can ask for nothing more than to have their visitors affected by the art on display. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's (MFA) exhibition, "Rachel Whiteread," certainly elicits emotion, but one not usually expected during a typical visit to the MFA.
    The exhibition, which runs until Jan. 25, includes several sculptures (mostly plaster castings) and drawings, as well as an arrangement of 201 vintage doll houses made from 2006-2008 titled "Place (Village)." Located to the left of the main entrance to the exhibition, "Place (Village)" is the highlight of the show.
    Rachel Whiteread is an award-winning contemporary British artist whose pieces range from installation art in places such as London's Trafalgar Square to relatively small items. Many of her works are castings of ordinary objects of all sizes made out of materials such as plaster, concrete and resin. One of her most famous public works is "House," which was installed in London in 1993.
            "House" is the casting of the interior of a terraced London flat. It remained on the site of the structure after the structure itself was demolished. Other homes on that London street were also demolished by the local council, so the piece now stands alone.
    "House" is bold but also haunting, and as such it is a good representation of Whiteread as an artist. It also shows her interest in making use of "negative" space and projected an air of emptiness and melancholy that is rather disquieting.
    These themes of emptiness and melancholy pervade in the MFA's exhibition, particularly in "Place (Village)." The work is not a casting of an ordinary object like "House," but it draws on the same themes. It is installed in a dark gallery, and consists of 201 vintage doll houses arranged on multiple levels of crates, which also serve as storage containers for the doll houses. The only light in the gallery comes from the small lights inside each doll house.
    The initial impact of "Place (Village)" is dramatic, as the illumination inside hundreds of tiny windows breaks the darkness of the gallery. Up close, however, each of the doll houses is empty, and the minimalist, haunting ideas behind the piece become clear. These are not the doll houses of a typical childhood. They are devoid of all warmth and project an image of melancholy, sadness and emptiness (as the artist intended) that becomes increasingly unsettling with each additional minute spent in the gallery.
    This is the first time that "Place (Village)" has been displayed in its full form, though a partial installation was in Naples at the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina. According to the exhibit curator, Cheryl Brutban, museum-goers in Naples commented on how closely the piece resembled the buildings of Naples itself, and it is ironic that in its full form, the piece is similarly reminiscent of the Boston neighborhood, Beacon Hill, particularly as seen from the Red Line on the way to the museum from Tufts. However, Beacon Hill is decidedly more lively and cheerful then the eerie arrangement of doll houses in "Place (Village)."
    While the works in the rest of the exhibition provide good background on "Place (Village)," it is best to visit it before viewing the rest of the exhibition because "Place (Village)'s" overall effect is the most dramatic of all the pieces in the show. The other works, including "Double-Doors II (A+B)" (2006) — two plaster castings of doors — highlight Whiteread's extraordinary concern for detail and ability to "transform the ordinary into the extraordinary," as Brutban stressed.
     "Rachel Whiteread" is certainly worth a visit to the MFA, as its emotional impact stands apart from the museum's other artwork. It is — as a result of the extensive, ongoing renovations  — part of the relatively  small amount of contemporary art currently on view at the museum and is at once thought-provoking and disquieting.