Summary of “Inside the White cube” by Brian O’Doherty

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Inside the White Cube by Brian O’Doherty is an art book that was published in 1976. It employs the ideology of the gallery space. It examines critically the effects of the post war crisis on art and museum gallery.

The author explores the main reasons of designing modern gallery space using neutral patterns, for example, a white cube, which is eventually a part of artwork that adds exhibition a special attractiveness (O’Doherty 9). The writer reveals that the main focus of the gallery space is centered to not just on a white cube because the whole exhibition and its design is also a historical special construction, which aim is to destroy art (O’Doherty 11). He says,

No wonder art gets bollixed up in this process; its history, perceived through time, is confounded by the picture in front of your eyes, a witness ready to change testimony at the slightest perceptual provocation. History and the eye have a profound wrangle at the center of this “constant” we call tradition (O’Doherty 23).

He goes ahead to discuss the setting of post-modern art by “stripping every layer of artifice away to end up with the white cube” (O’Doherty 33). O’Doherty illustrates what a modernist gallery does to artworks. He suggests that the outside world must not intervene.

To him, the walls should be painted in white whereas the ceiling becomes the source of light. This essentially means that the white cube is designed in such a way that it neutralizes social space and time to free itself contextually. O’Doherty elaborates the importance of the walls and how they can be used in art.

The author shows that space offers a platform for things to take place. Usually, a gallery links pictures ultimately defining the space. The result is a well thought piece of artwork that should appeal to anyone who stands inside a gallery. The writer goes on to illustrate that the context can only be eliminated if a space is constructed to exclude the outside world (O’Doherty 52)

He describes the modern gallery space to be constructed according to some rigorous laws as those for building medieval church. This is an illustration that the artwork just like religious constructions must adhere to time. The author also explores the foundation concerning designing of exhibitions where he tries to establish how displays of chambers are accomplished. He makes a discovery of similarities through the history of religion (O’Doherty 23).

This is depicted categorically where he states that Egyptians tombs were designed to be set off from the outside world and difficult to access just like the Palaeolithic painted caves and the Magdalenian and Aurignacian ages in Spain and France (O’Doherty 28). The tombs included sculptures and paintings that were seen as sacred and magically eternal (O’Doherty 36).

According to O’Doherty (40), mankind has reached a point where he sees a great amount of possibilities a d space to develop for the art. The gallery eliminates all these, interferes with the progress of the artwork, hence ensuring that the artwork is of high quality. The artwork will be eternal if only it is independent from daily life politics and historical times (O’Doherty 45).

Art is nowadays made of an illusion contrary to older days when it was seen as illusion. The white cube is essential to rub out the past to make the artwork untouched, hence looking as good as investment (O’Doherty 52).

This gives the space a presence possessed by other spaces where conventions are preserved through the repetition of a closed system of values. Some of the sanctity of the church, the formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory joins with chic design to produce a unique chamber of esthetics. So powerful are the perceptual fields of force within this chamber that once outside it, art can lapse into secular status- and conversely (O’Doherty 67).

There is also a clear distinction between the easel painting and the modern artistic display. O’Doherty (69) makes a reference to an image of Le Louvre (1932-33). From this image, it is evident that we “see the magical boxlike status of the smaller easel pictures due to the immense distance they contain and their precise detailing they have when you examine them up closely.” (O’Doherty 73).

The easel picture is explicitly described as being framed, “a window within the picture in turn frames not only a further distance but confirms the window like limits of the frame” (O’Doherty 86).

The framing of such a painting is psychological whereas the room still remains for the viewer. “The greater the illusion, the greater invitation to the spectators eye” (Brian O’Doherty 82). When the picture frame is dropped, it helps the viewer’s eyes to relax and creates an opportunity for the artwork to start to establish its territory in the space (O’Doherty 90).

From Brian O’Doherty’s work, it is evident that the artwork has its own place in the space. Therefore, artwork is an essential part of the space which should be guarded from being eroded with time.

Works Cited

O’Doherty, Brian. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. San Francisco: Lapis Press, 1976. Print.

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Summary of “Inside the White cube” by Brian O’Doherty

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