the back and forth
of the ‘white cube’

Notes from the 2020 Curatorial Workshop | 23-26 June 2020 |Bucharest Biennale.

Perhaps the most used term in relation to the discussion of exhibitionary conventions is “the white cube” —the architecture and conventions of display in ’empty’ ‘neutral’ white rooms that isolate the work of art from any specific sense of place and time, creating a generic space that operates in standard ways from Hong Kong to Stockholm, and from Melbourne to Mexico city. While in some ways overly familiar, this practice still demands a critical scrutiny that overcomes the presumption that it is an already fully known quantity. From O’Doherty’s ArtForum essays of the 1970s, later anthologized as “Inside the White Cube”, to Filipovic’s wonderful challenge to the rhetorics of innovation and the cultural hegemony of its protocols, “the white cube” has not yet been quite emptied of its “content” nor fully unpacked, in its variations from the tiny chic boutique to the flexible scenography of the enchanted maze in 21st century museums.

Cain, Abigail (2017) ”How the White Cube Came to Dominate the Art World.”

Filipovic, Elena (2014) “The Global White Cube” in OnCurating, Issue 22, April.

Hugendubel, Eleonore (2010) “Small Steps Lead to Bigger Changes: MoMA’s Shifting Wall Colors”

Maak, N., Klonk, C.and Demand, T. (2011) “The white cube and beyond Museum display”

MOMA “Installation photographs of the Museum’s first exhibition, 1929”

O’Doherty, Brian (1976) “Inside the White Cube”

Sheikh, Simon (2009) “Positively White Cube Revisited.” e-flux Journal #03,February

Solakov, Nedko (a work that plays on white cube protocols)