A friend recently sent me an article about sculptor Rachael Whiteread, who takes residual space, in various contexts, and makes it tangible by using plaster, concrete or resin to make molds of the space behind books on shelves, the interiors of packing cartons, the space under chairs, and the interior of an entire Victorian house. In art jargon, Whiteread is working with negative space—the space in and around an object—as a way of evoking memories of physical things.

The sculpture that most intrigues me is one she created in 1997, Untitled (Paperbacks), which is now in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Using plaster, she cast a series of bookshelves arranged with a variety of books. What is caught in the plaster is the impression of the undersides and spines of these books, not the books  themselves. The complete piece is meant to be installed on the walls of small gallery space, similar in size to a personal library. The presence of books is evoked by what they’ve left behind.

This is a powerful metaphor, made even more evocative by the fact that this sculpture was created thirteen years ago, long before the appearance of Kindles and iPads.