A white cube gallery is a gallery style that is square or rectangular shape, has unadorned white walls and a light source usually in the ceiling. It typically has hardwood or polished concrete floors. In the early twentieth century art became more abstract and groups such as the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

and

de Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...

demanded their works were displayed on white walls; to them the background was integral to the picture, it was the frame.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

's 1883 show at London's

Fine Art Society The Fine Art Society is a gallery based in both London and in Edinburgh's New Town (originally Bourne Fine Art, established 1978). The New Bond Street, London gallery closed its doors in August 2018 after being occupied by The Fine Art Society si ...

has been cited as perhaps the first "white cube" show, the artworks being framed in white and hung against a white felt background. ALBERS VIEW 1

By 1976 the White Cube aesthetic was being criticised by

Brian O'Doherty Brian O'Doherty (4 May 1928 – 7 November 2022) was an Irish-American art critic, writer, visual artist, and academic. He lived in New York City for over 50 years, serving as an art critic for ''The New York Times'' and NBC, as well as an edito ...

as a

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

obsession. In ''Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space'', he argued that in an easel painting the frame was the window through which one saw the world, and that required a wall for context. When the frame is gone and the wall is white, in O'Doherty's view, perspective and formal composition are absent. O'Doherty describes the flatness of

Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

as eroding the line of an edge, and sees the White Cube as redefining the picture plane. O'Doherty argues that it becomes no longer enough to use the white wall as a frame to the art, but in

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

it becomes necessary to redefine the work to exploit it, to fill it. He writes that the spectator must ask: "Where must I stand?" O'Doherty describes the context of the white space as mirroring twentieth-century society where life has become divorced from geography. In

Postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

he sees that art is designed to be difficult, expensive and excluding. To O'Doherty, the white cube space is a designed social, financial, and intellectual snobbery, where art has to occupy large expensive spaces. He sees the white walls neutrality as an illusion, binding artist and the elite spectator together, while the cube is an acceptance of the estrangement of the artist from society and the artist who accepts the gallery space is conforming with the social order. In 2003,

Charles Saatchi Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest a ...

launched an attack on the concept of the white wall gallery, calling it "antiseptic" and a "time warp ... dictated by museum fashion".. Writing in 2015, art critic Jonathan Jones felt that while there was once "real shock in walking into a gallery as white and pure as a Stanley Kubrick space station", the style had since become conventional and uninspiring.

References

Visual arts terminology Art history Types of art museums and galleries {{Art-display-stub