The building rises up behind the old streets of Piccadilly like a cathedral. The only materials it is visibly made of are white painted concrete, steel and glass. The building at Mason’s Yard is the latest gallery space of Jay Joplin’s White Cube. Recently build, its name is no lie: this is the ultimate White Cube.
When you get inside, the place resembles all what comes to mind when we think of a modern gallery space. White walls, sealed windows and artificial light coming from above. The outside world is completely blocked out. Keeping out change and time of the turning world around us, the White Cube becomes a non-space. This building has no traces of life: no scratches on the walls, no faded colors or light, just white perfection. Non-space can in science be seen as the opposite of a black hole. It is not an empty space; it is a volume empty of space. It has no identity.
The high ceilings, the white walls and the light do however suggest we are in some sort of sacred place. The gallery becomes like a chamber of eternal display, almost like a church or the holy buildings in ancient Egypt. Art is ritually presented, and through the feeling of eternity we are suggested all the art we see in here is indeed a masterpiece.
The religious aspects of the white cube also have effects on us as a spectator. When we enter this building, we leave a certain part of ourselves outside the door. We switch on our artistic attitude. This is necessary for us to know how we should behave in such a space. Our artistic attitude is switched on by the surroundings of the white cube. This heavy context immediately tells us we are looking at art, we are not supposed to touch it, and we have to keep quiet. Also, we know we are expected to think about the art, before we can understand it. This means what we left outside of the white cube is our body. All we need is our eyes connected to our brains. When entering the white cube, we accept to be a reduced version of ourselves. We are just spiritual beings now.
On the one hand, the white cube draws all our attention towards the artworks, glorifying them. The space does not distract us and gives us a breath of fresh air from the busy world outside. But on the other side the white cube is a prison of social context and lacks everything that defines life and therefore art. By defining the context of art in such a heavy way, it almost becomes irrelevant if there is an empty canvas on show or a great work of art.
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Tuesday 2 November 2010
the spectacle
The Ladies’ Paradise
Rianne Groen
When you enter Harrods, one of the world’s most famous department stores, all your senses are sharpened at once. A door is held open for you, upon which you enter through a wade of perfume. Faces smile at you, you smile back. Your feet sink in the carpet as you see a perfectly lit Yves Saint Laurent bag. But the true spectacle of Harrods is to be found in the center of the store: the Egyptian staircase. You enter a world of splendor, kitsch and banal wealth, and you will love it. While going up the escalators, the gold shimmers and soft music plays. The smell of perfume shifts to the smell of luxury leather goods. When you get off at one of the floors, it is hard to get back. There are so many objects of desire…
Posters of celebrities are displayed all over the walls, promoting fashion or other must-haves. Their faces are comforting: they are the spectacular representations of living human beings, here to be worshipped by us.
The gold of the escalators, the Egyptian ornaments, are all as fake as you can make them. But this is exactly what we like so much about them: it is as fake as the special effects in the old Star Wars movies, but we enjoy the fake to enjoy the spectacle.
Halfway down the escalators is a reminder to perhaps one of the most spectacular events in media history: it is a monument to Dodi Al Fayed, son of Harrods’ former owner, and Princess Diana. The monument is shaped in the form of a glass pyramid. It holds a wineglass with a lipstick mark of the princess. In its sentimentality and in memory of the event it perfectly fits the spectacle of the Egyptian staircase.
When you leave the Egyptian staircase to find yet another floor of commodities, you enter a place called the shoe boudoir. In this dark place, commodity fetishism is at its best. Diamond encrusted sandals are placed on a marble base, lit by several small spots to dazzle you. The heels are so high and thin you do not even dare to touch them. These shoes are truly not for wearing.
The people at Harrods proudly claim to sell ‘all things for all people, everywhere’. When Ronald Reagan once phoned Harrods to ask if they sold elephants, the reply was “would that be African or Indian sir?”. The department store is a whole world in objects, turning into an objectified world. The manifestation of the spectacle makes us into consumers of illusions.
The spectacle sucks us in, and without noticing you are standing outside with several bags in your hand. We take our commodities to the counter, and when we have paid they ask us: “do you need anything else?”. Difficult question.
Rianne Groen
When you enter Harrods, one of the world’s most famous department stores, all your senses are sharpened at once. A door is held open for you, upon which you enter through a wade of perfume. Faces smile at you, you smile back. Your feet sink in the carpet as you see a perfectly lit Yves Saint Laurent bag. But the true spectacle of Harrods is to be found in the center of the store: the Egyptian staircase. You enter a world of splendor, kitsch and banal wealth, and you will love it. While going up the escalators, the gold shimmers and soft music plays. The smell of perfume shifts to the smell of luxury leather goods. When you get off at one of the floors, it is hard to get back. There are so many objects of desire…
Posters of celebrities are displayed all over the walls, promoting fashion or other must-haves. Their faces are comforting: they are the spectacular representations of living human beings, here to be worshipped by us.
The gold of the escalators, the Egyptian ornaments, are all as fake as you can make them. But this is exactly what we like so much about them: it is as fake as the special effects in the old Star Wars movies, but we enjoy the fake to enjoy the spectacle.
Halfway down the escalators is a reminder to perhaps one of the most spectacular events in media history: it is a monument to Dodi Al Fayed, son of Harrods’ former owner, and Princess Diana. The monument is shaped in the form of a glass pyramid. It holds a wineglass with a lipstick mark of the princess. In its sentimentality and in memory of the event it perfectly fits the spectacle of the Egyptian staircase.
When you leave the Egyptian staircase to find yet another floor of commodities, you enter a place called the shoe boudoir. In this dark place, commodity fetishism is at its best. Diamond encrusted sandals are placed on a marble base, lit by several small spots to dazzle you. The heels are so high and thin you do not even dare to touch them. These shoes are truly not for wearing.
The people at Harrods proudly claim to sell ‘all things for all people, everywhere’. When Ronald Reagan once phoned Harrods to ask if they sold elephants, the reply was “would that be African or Indian sir?”. The department store is a whole world in objects, turning into an objectified world. The manifestation of the spectacle makes us into consumers of illusions.
The spectacle sucks us in, and without noticing you are standing outside with several bags in your hand. We take our commodities to the counter, and when we have paid they ask us: “do you need anything else?”. Difficult question.
the beloved object
The sea in a shell – Rianne Groen
When you press it against your ear, you can hear the sea. At least, that is what my grandmother used to tell me when I was younger. I have seen quite some seas and oceans since, but none of them sound like this.
The shape is like a human heart, and it can just fit in my hand. On top of it is a carving of a woman, which is quite badly executed. I have no idea who the woman is; she has a sharp nose, pearls in her ears and a great haircut. Maybe she was a Greek goddess, the butcher’s daughter, or what the carver wished his wife to look like. The ugliness has something appealing in it. The kind of people who collect Swarovski crystal dogs and fake Hummel figurines would love it. The creases are filled with grey dust. It must be at least fifty years old, maybe more.
The bottom is a pink fleshy color, like a plump mouth with sharp teeth. The opening looks like a big animal growling at you. Sometimes I see it as a more sensual image, like the frightening flower vaginas in Pink Floyd’s animations. I like to feel it; it is smooth and curved, but at the same time rough and prickly. A blind man would enjoy the object, because there is so much to feel. Perhaps he would be slightly confused about the carved part on top, which mixes natural shapes with an unnatural human form.
Actually, something used to live in there, way before it got to me. I do not know what it looked like, but it probably had several little legs and a very soft body so it could squeeze in. It used to live on the bottom of the sea, surrounded by sand, shiny fishes and sharks. Sometimes it would hide. The weight would be heavy on its back, but it would be safe because this was his home. Maybe that is where it got its sound, on the bottom of the ocean. But it is now empty, and nobody lives there anymore. I do not think the carved woman was already there. She came in later.
Sometimes I like to hold it in my hand. The weight of it makes me feel like it is an important object. It makes me think of the famous book by William Golding, Lord of the Flies. The children in the book used to have something like this, which was their symbol of power. If they had it in their possession, they could talk. Since I have it at home, I am always free to speak.
I might be wrong about it being empty. To me there is still something living inside; my grandmother who used to tell me to listen to the sea.
When you press it against your ear, you can hear the sea. At least, that is what my grandmother used to tell me when I was younger. I have seen quite some seas and oceans since, but none of them sound like this.
The shape is like a human heart, and it can just fit in my hand. On top of it is a carving of a woman, which is quite badly executed. I have no idea who the woman is; she has a sharp nose, pearls in her ears and a great haircut. Maybe she was a Greek goddess, the butcher’s daughter, or what the carver wished his wife to look like. The ugliness has something appealing in it. The kind of people who collect Swarovski crystal dogs and fake Hummel figurines would love it. The creases are filled with grey dust. It must be at least fifty years old, maybe more.
The bottom is a pink fleshy color, like a plump mouth with sharp teeth. The opening looks like a big animal growling at you. Sometimes I see it as a more sensual image, like the frightening flower vaginas in Pink Floyd’s animations. I like to feel it; it is smooth and curved, but at the same time rough and prickly. A blind man would enjoy the object, because there is so much to feel. Perhaps he would be slightly confused about the carved part on top, which mixes natural shapes with an unnatural human form.
Actually, something used to live in there, way before it got to me. I do not know what it looked like, but it probably had several little legs and a very soft body so it could squeeze in. It used to live on the bottom of the sea, surrounded by sand, shiny fishes and sharks. Sometimes it would hide. The weight would be heavy on its back, but it would be safe because this was his home. Maybe that is where it got its sound, on the bottom of the ocean. But it is now empty, and nobody lives there anymore. I do not think the carved woman was already there. She came in later.
Sometimes I like to hold it in my hand. The weight of it makes me feel like it is an important object. It makes me think of the famous book by William Golding, Lord of the Flies. The children in the book used to have something like this, which was their symbol of power. If they had it in their possession, they could talk. Since I have it at home, I am always free to speak.
I might be wrong about it being empty. To me there is still something living inside; my grandmother who used to tell me to listen to the sea.
Walid Raad: Miraculous beginnings
On Walid Raad
The new exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery by Walid Raad has so many layers that I wonder if every visitor gets all of it.
At first it all seems like a very serious exhibition on the history of Lebanon, when we are looking at a lot of archival material of all the atrocities that happened in civil war.
But it already starts when you enter the exhibition and you see this scheme about the way ‘they’ have documented all this archive material and filed it. They, The Atlas Group, already pose a problem. Who are they? Actually, a fictional group which is only Walid Raad. So, this Atlas Group found out a lot of things on the Lebanon war. But who made the pictures of the car bombs? Who made the video tape of the hostage? Who found the pictures with the drowned people in them? Everything gets confusing. But you believe the art institute will always tell the truth. So you continue to take things seriously.
When you enter the other large room of the exhibition upstairs things start to get really confusing. A scale model of the exhibition is shown on a table in the middle of the room. Including miniatures of the car bomb series, and even smaller versions of the videos downstairs are playing. When you read the text on the wall, it says that Walid Raad refused an exhibition in a new museum in Lebanon a couple of times. When he finally agreed, and unpacked the works after shipping, he found out all of his artworks had shrunk to a very small size! So he was very uncertain about what to do. In the end he decided to make a small museum to make the shrunken artworks fit. Now, what is this all about? Did the artworks of Walid Raad actually shrink?
When I went to see Walid Raad speak last Friday at the artist talk in the Whitechapel Gallery, it was all very natural. He spoke about the shrinking of his artworks, and nobody got up to ask him what the hell he was talking about. At first I did not understand what he was talking about, but later on I just sat listening like it was completely normal his artworks had shrunk. Now this is exactly what I found so extremely interesting about Walid Raad. He is a hugely intellectual person, but also a good speaker with a very flexible mind. He makes us think: ok, so now these artworks are so small, what should we do with the museum? Can we let it shrink as well? When we were discussing the exhibition with Daniel Herrmann at the Whitechapel, he said: Is Walid Raad even Lebanese? Nobody ever checked it. He has lived almost his whole life in the United States. Are these actually pictures of smoke from bombs? Maybe it is just a barbeque.
But it is not the point. It is the way he assembles things, put them together. Creates stories. Makes people think: about Lebanon, about art, about the art institution.
The new exhibition in the Whitechapel Gallery by Walid Raad has so many layers that I wonder if every visitor gets all of it.
At first it all seems like a very serious exhibition on the history of Lebanon, when we are looking at a lot of archival material of all the atrocities that happened in civil war.
But it already starts when you enter the exhibition and you see this scheme about the way ‘they’ have documented all this archive material and filed it. They, The Atlas Group, already pose a problem. Who are they? Actually, a fictional group which is only Walid Raad. So, this Atlas Group found out a lot of things on the Lebanon war. But who made the pictures of the car bombs? Who made the video tape of the hostage? Who found the pictures with the drowned people in them? Everything gets confusing. But you believe the art institute will always tell the truth. So you continue to take things seriously.
When you enter the other large room of the exhibition upstairs things start to get really confusing. A scale model of the exhibition is shown on a table in the middle of the room. Including miniatures of the car bomb series, and even smaller versions of the videos downstairs are playing. When you read the text on the wall, it says that Walid Raad refused an exhibition in a new museum in Lebanon a couple of times. When he finally agreed, and unpacked the works after shipping, he found out all of his artworks had shrunk to a very small size! So he was very uncertain about what to do. In the end he decided to make a small museum to make the shrunken artworks fit. Now, what is this all about? Did the artworks of Walid Raad actually shrink?
When I went to see Walid Raad speak last Friday at the artist talk in the Whitechapel Gallery, it was all very natural. He spoke about the shrinking of his artworks, and nobody got up to ask him what the hell he was talking about. At first I did not understand what he was talking about, but later on I just sat listening like it was completely normal his artworks had shrunk. Now this is exactly what I found so extremely interesting about Walid Raad. He is a hugely intellectual person, but also a good speaker with a very flexible mind. He makes us think: ok, so now these artworks are so small, what should we do with the museum? Can we let it shrink as well? When we were discussing the exhibition with Daniel Herrmann at the Whitechapel, he said: Is Walid Raad even Lebanese? Nobody ever checked it. He has lived almost his whole life in the United States. Are these actually pictures of smoke from bombs? Maybe it is just a barbeque.
But it is not the point. It is the way he assembles things, put them together. Creates stories. Makes people think: about Lebanon, about art, about the art institution.
FRIEZE art fair 2010
On the Frieze art fair 2010
My first time at the Frieze fair was not shockingly different from other international fairs I have visited before (Art Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam, Art Brussels, Art Forum Berlin). Many people, a lot of good art and a lot of bad art. What disappointed me was the amount of big galleries with known artists. I always like to go to art fairs to find out about new artists, to explore. But at the Frieze there was not so much to explore. Some artists keep returning in the stands of different galleries. In that way a lot of galleries keep on the safe side: show their greatest hits to be sure of good sales.
There were some interesting galleries from outside the UK: from Moscow, Amsterdam, Seoul etc. The chic galleries that represent famous artists were also there in quite big numbers (Perrotin Paris, Xavier Hufkens Brussels, White Cube London etc.).
The most expensive artwork that I saw and know the price of was a sculpture by John Chamberlain ($ 1.500.000). Also available was work by this year’s Turner Prize nominee Angela de la Cruz, which sculpture was listed for 40.000 pounds.
Interesting artists I saw were: Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Sergej Jensen (Anton Kern gallery and Galerie Neu), Germaine Kruip (The Approach), Alex Buldakov (XL gallery, who were also selling the infamous ugly iPhone artwork) and Gabriel Lester (Fons Welters).
My first time at the Frieze fair was not shockingly different from other international fairs I have visited before (Art Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam, Art Brussels, Art Forum Berlin). Many people, a lot of good art and a lot of bad art. What disappointed me was the amount of big galleries with known artists. I always like to go to art fairs to find out about new artists, to explore. But at the Frieze there was not so much to explore. Some artists keep returning in the stands of different galleries. In that way a lot of galleries keep on the safe side: show their greatest hits to be sure of good sales.
There were some interesting galleries from outside the UK: from Moscow, Amsterdam, Seoul etc. The chic galleries that represent famous artists were also there in quite big numbers (Perrotin Paris, Xavier Hufkens Brussels, White Cube London etc.).
The most expensive artwork that I saw and know the price of was a sculpture by John Chamberlain ($ 1.500.000). Also available was work by this year’s Turner Prize nominee Angela de la Cruz, which sculpture was listed for 40.000 pounds.
Interesting artists I saw were: Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Sergej Jensen (Anton Kern gallery and Galerie Neu), Germaine Kruip (The Approach), Alex Buldakov (XL gallery, who were also selling the infamous ugly iPhone artwork) and Gabriel Lester (Fons Welters).
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