Exercise 5.1: Origin of the White Cube.

Exercise 5.1: Origins of the White Cube.

In the second paragraph McEvilley comments on O’Doherty’s description of gallery space; that it should exclude outside distractions and allow the exhibits to speak for themselves.  The lack of windows or decoration allow the observer to concentrate on the images.  

McEvilly compares the effect of medieval church buildings where the outside world was also excluded so as to concentrate the congregation’s mind on the glory of God and all his works.  This exclusion technique, he argues, has been employed from the earliest times and he gives the examples of Egyptian tombs and Paleolithic cave paintings.  The absence of stimuli from the outside world focuses the mind on the image and can allow deep thought and understanding.  

He states that since these spaces are cultural and tribal places their use reinforces the traditions and beliefs of the people who use them.  Their religious significance can link heaven and earth and may allow some deeper understanding of life and death.

The use of such places has been used as a way of the ruling class to subjugate and control the masses.  The unchanging nature of these places will act as a firm base on witch the users civilisation can be built.

The White Cube is an exclusive space with is designed to appeal to the members of a certain caste.  Its sheer blandness gives it sense of its own reality and magic.  It is not designed to appeal to those who do not understand it.

The second part deals with the Eye and the Spectator.  The understanding is that the Spectator has but one job and that is to allow the Eye to see and not interfere.  One subjugates normal function to allow the Eye to see.  Whether it is a church or a gallery one speaks and acts in a special way, refraining from loud conversation, or the consumption of comestibles.  The feeling one has in a church and a gallery can be similar with the needs of the Spectator coming second to the demands of the Eye.

The emptiness of the gallery was used by Duchamp in a very different way in his 1938 1.200 Bags of Coal, that has bags of coal suspended from the ceiling above a brazier, and his 1942 Mile of String, where he criss-crossed a gallery with string.  Various artists have used the empty space of the White Cube as a exhibition on its own.  Among these have been Yves Klein, Michael Asher and James Lee Byars.   

By excluding the outside the White Cube couldn’t accommodate history and wasn’t connected to real time.  Inside there is no room for what is outside and as such it lacks any real dimension and cannot represent anything other than it’s own space.  

Comment.

The quote, “The outside world must not come in , so windows are usually sealed off.  Walls are painted White.  The ceiling becomes the source of light”, is the perfect description of an IKEA store.  In a church the outside is brought in through the windows, whether by plain or stained glass.  Indeed what would the Sagrada Famalia be  without the white tree like columns dappled by the light from the stained glass windows.  Churches are full of references to the outside but the White Cube and IKEA exclude such references.

My nearest gallery is The Turner at Margate.  The galleries are indeed white spaces but as one moves around between them one is offered views of the outside so as to clear the mind before passing onto the next gallery.  A successful mixture of closed spaces within an open public place.

Galleries do tend to attract a certain public and are seen as alien places to many.  When the Jerwood Gallery opened in Hastings it was seen as elitist, there was a lot of local clamour about it being too posh for the area, about it being a waste money, about it not fitting in with the local buildings.  The gallery is a quirky space with odd shaped viewing areas and constant glimpses of the outside through the windows.  It is definitely not a White Cube.  It is an inviting space and far less intimidating the the claustrophobic Cube.

I recently displayed some photographs in North Deal Community Centre and because they were placed where they were readily viewable they raised lot of comment and interest.  A friend of mine exhibited in the entrance of Folkestone Town Hall but because of poor placement they went unseen.

The paragraph on the Eye and the Spectator described nicely how a critic or connoisseur may view an image.  The average visitor to the Louve heads straight for the Mona Lisa and takes a phone shot, largely of other people doing the same, and leaves.  They show no interest in the rest of the museum or its other exhibits but go there merely tick off another landmark.  All this is done in the ultimate White Cube as there is nothing but the Mona Lisa on view.  This noisy throng certainly do not seem to understand the purpose of the White Cube.

The White Cube is an elitist, exclusive, and barren space that was designed to intimidate and threaten.  It was not designed as a space where one can go and enjoy art.  Either that or an IKEA store.

Having just published this  noticed in The Telegraph today (10.10.14) an article about a work of art, Pietro Manzoni's Achrome, that is expected to sell for £7 million.  It consists of white paintings displayed in a white room.  The ultimate White Cube?