Housing art: challenging the white cube

Abstract

'If the house is the house of modernism, what knocks can you expect? The house itself, built on ideal foundations, is imposing, even though the neighbourhood is changing. It has a Dada kitchen, a fine Surrealist attic, a Utopian playroom, a critics' mess, clean, well-lighted galleries for what is current, votive lights to various saints, a suicide closet, vast storage rooms, and a basement flop-house where failed histories lie around mumbling like bums. We hear the Expressionists' thunderous knock, the Surrealist's coded knock, the Realists at the tradesman's entrance, the Dadas sawing through the back door. Very typical is the Abstractionist's single, unrepeated knock. And unmistakable is the peremptory knock of historical inevitability, which sets the whole house scurrying.' Brian O'Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, p 65 The Annual Academy Forum in 1991 was on New Museology and inevitably focussed on the discussion of a neutral and flexible space versus a space of character. This Forum took place in London, and was attended by a group of architects, artists, art collectors and museum curators. Robert Maxwell, the moderator, in his conclusion commented: I do not think there is any possibility that we could conclude with a single idea for the ideal gallery. The Forum provides a lead for the discussion of an ideal gallery space, which has been described as the 'white cube' by artist and critic, Brian O'Doherty in his book, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (1986). This report aims to address the questioning of the architectural appropriateness of the white container interior for the exhibition of art, approached from the following aspects: Are there alternative 'models' which challenge the established paradigm of the 'white cube'? Can art be 'housed' in a more architecturally assertive and responsive environment allowing the visitors to shift focus between art and architecture? Can the revival of the house-museum tradition in essence present an architecturally challenging container for an experience and appreciation of art within the contemporary context? The structure of the report will therefore approach the adaptation of the house-museum essence through a series of discussion on the development of the house-museum tradition, and the evolution of the 'white cube' from the Modern Movement. This is followed by an analysis on an experience and appreciation of art, and on the conditions of the contemporary context that govern the gallery space perceived today. Finally the report aims to establish the plausibility of adapting the house-museum tradition as an alternative model of the gallery space in a context that is deeply affected by the Modern Movement, and obviously different from the classical setting of the house-museum.