Inside the W̸h̸i̸t̸e̸ Virtual Cube: Manifesto for the Exploration of Online Galleries
What we write here is at best the muddled beginnings of making sense of the broad new architectures art and artists find themselves within and through which curators and gallerists construct new theatres. Where Brian O’Doherty’s seminal series for Artforum, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (1986), dealt with a linear evolution — stepping from the Beaux-Arts frame and the Salon it supported, to the erasure of all decorative embellishments, that gave rise to content container white cubes — this blog will try to make sense of the branching explosion of user-interface (UI) and user-experience (UX) design that creates the new ideological ground for our present digital Avant-Garde.
Though the structure outlined by O’Doherty, historical dots-in-a-row, differs from the forking network narrative we find ourselves witness to, a reflection on his writing is fundamentally important to comprehend the conscious and subconscious rationals that underpin recent movements. In this first post, we present a short essayistic revival of O’Doherty’s ideas, setting the ground for an ongoing series of posts that will range from: interviews with online curators addressing their platforms and approach to interactive space; psychogeographically inspired dérives through virtual worlds; the annotated deconstruction of user-interface designs; quantitative explorations of social media’s impact on the curatorial act; and finally, drawing on our various routes of exploration, the creation of a new taxonomy of gallery space that identifies not only the architectonic characteristics of online galleries, but also the ideologies these reflect.
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Charting a progression from the 19th century Salon to the post-war white cube, O’Doherty contends that, spurred by spatial experimentations witnessed in the first half of the 20th (Duchamp, Schwitters, Lissitzy and so forth), the post-war period witnessed a resolute shift in the trifecta relationship between audience, art and gallery. By 1976 it had become standard practice to “see not the art but the space first” leading to the conclusion that a “white, ideal space… more than any single picture, may be the archetypal image of twentieth century art” (p14). Hermetically sealed from the outside world, the white cube “subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere” isolating it within an aesthetic world that binds “the sanctity of the church, the formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory” with chic design (p14). Conversely, what exists outside the sanctified space, the space which determines and beatifies art, is threatened with a “lapse into secular status” (p14).
An ideological technological apparatus, the walls of the white cube, according to O’Doherty, become “a membrane through which esthetic and commercial values osmotically exchange” and whilst proclaiming a neutrality, are in fact signifiers “for a community with common ideas and assumptions” (p79). Marrying commerce and conceptualism, the white cube permits the superimposition of the “artist’s respect for what he[/she/they] have invented” with the “bourgeois desire for possession” (p76). Set against pristine walls the “way pictures are hung make assumptions” and “editorializes on matters of interpretation and value,” (p24) rationalising artwork not as a simple asset but one that conveys status. To protect this finely arranged balance, the aesthetic coding of the white cube not only elevates the artwork into a sphere of rarified economics, it signals who may and who may not enter, forming a secondary membrane stretched across the entrance that is difficult to penetrate without prior knowledge and an internalised set of assumptions. The experience is unusually not dissimilar to crossing the threshold of a British country pub, the gallerina and the skew-eyed local have much in common in their gatekeeper functionality.
For many artists born in the digital era (frequently approximated as 1989 onwards) there have been few galleries that do not conform with these modes of practice, the white cube has become so ubiquitous that the vast majority follow its architectural ideology without thought, only differentiable by the slight idiosyncrasies of the building they have renovated. Accordingly, this mode of art consumption and context is seen as the logical progression of a successful art career, informing the production of art itself. However, the current generation of artists have come to fruition under the sociological context of Neoliberalism. With the numerical expansion of the art school — incentivised by increased financial dependencies — more arts graduates are created each year than ever before. Coupled with an increasingly competitive housing market in many major cities (paralleled with studio costs) and the erosion of social support, the margins for success within the white cube hierarchy become slim.
It is no wonder then, that a modern subaltern of artists have eschewed this “carefully neutralized ground” (p76) favouring space that reverts away from manicured voids returning to contextually indulgent forms of exhibition. A reaction against these outdated arenas of arts discourse is therefore not simply ideological, but rather factual and logical. The election of the digital as a replacement, is not simply a momentary zeitgeist but a sensible recognition that cyber-space opens a perpetually unlimited real-estate and compacts large studio expenses into laptops, external hard-drives and rented rendering power.
Exactly the same can be said of today’s emergent curatorial field, similarly digitally-native (to borrow Premskey’s unfortunately phrased dichotomy) they too find themselves turning to and draw to — in equal measure — the possibilities afforded by online spaces. Highly literate on social media and familiar with the basics of web-design, thanks to the ease and affordability of modern template editor platforms, the new era of curator often begins by renovating a pre-set format and innovating it into a unique space. Using Wix, Squarespace, Wordpress or CargoCollective (at a later stage we’ll compile a comprehensive list) they can adjust the architecture of their gallery in real time and in-between exhibitions. Unlike the white cube gallerist they need not commit to a single permanent overhaul. Some even eschew websites altogether, preferring to act in the commons, curating directly to social media platforms.
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This fluidity of space, it’s infinite variability, and the artists and curators’s intent to be experimental sets it resolutely against the logic of the white cube. Linking the gallery to the religious, O’Doherty identifies that by suggesting an “eternal ratification of a certain sensibility,” — one announced by elevated aesthetic codes both on and of the walls — the white cube also “suggests the eternal ratification of the claims of the caste or group sharing that sensibility” (p9). Essentially framing the modern gallery construct as a site of conservative value construction (we use ‘conservative’ here without specific reference to any party, rather in the sense that party allegiances aside (Labour/Conservative, Democrat/Republican) one can wish for a system to remain in place).
In response to this, we would posit that the online gallery sits now at a near threshold moment. Historically, the sphere of digital art practices have been small and discrete, a specialist subject working at the edges of the art world proper, exerting an influence but never stealing the spotlight. However, though the aforementioned increase in online practice should only ever be seen as a positive, with it looms a threat of homogenisation. We face an accidental simplification of complexity, leading to a return to a singular conservative ideological position, reiterating the logics of the art market, rather than seeking alternatives. The NFT gold rush exacerbates this situation tenfold.
Only by embracing the constant state of experimental flux can online art spaces resist simple definitions and by extension control. Paradoxically, it is our intent to analyse in order to promote diversity. Within this blog we will use multiple methodologies to chart the variance of online exhibitions, galleries and art project spaces, to provide insight and encouragement to artists and curators to maintain a constant renewal of form, and thereby resist corporatised normalisation.
