Inside the White Cube读后感摘抄

《Inside the White Cube》是一本由Brian O'Doherty著作，University of California Press出版的Paperback图书，本书定价：USD 31.95，页数：113，特精心收集的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。

《Inside the White Cube》读后感(一)：试译：「旁观者的奇妙冒险，又名展览馆的众生相」

奥多尔蒂对展览馆中“旁观者”的行为举止作了一番“尖酸刻薄”的描绘，令人印象深刻。于是就干脆翻译了一下。标题为自拟。

这个旁观者（Spectator）——又叫观看者（Viewer），有时叫观察者（Observer），偶尔叫感知者（Perceiver）——是谁呢？它没有面孔，主要是个背影。它弯腰俯视，略显笨拙。它的态度是探询的，它的困惑是谨慎的。他——我敢肯定是男性多于女性——随着现代主义一同到来，随着透视法一同消失。他似乎从画面中诞生，像一个初具知觉的亚当，被反复拉回来注视着它。旁观者似乎有点傻；他不是你或我。他总是随叫随到，在每件需要其在场的新作品前都会踉踉跄跄地站好位置。这个有责任感的替身随时准备好上演我们最美妙的旁观过程。他耐心地探测它们，并不反感我们向他提供方向和回应：“这位观众感觉到……”；“这位观察者注意到……”；“这位旁观者移动到……”他对效果很敏感：“在这位旁观者身上产生的效果是......”他像猎犬一样嗅出了含糊不清的东西：“囿于这些含糊不清的东西之间，旁观者......”他不仅根据指令站着和坐着；他躺着，甚至爬着，因为现代主义对他施加了终极的侮辱。他被困在了黑暗当中，被剥夺了感知线索，被闪光灯照射着，经常看到自己的形象被各种媒体切割和回收。艺术将他组装起来，但他是一个迟钝的动词，渴望承载意义的重量，却并不总能做到。他找着平衡；他探测着；他被神秘化，被去神秘化。旁观者在混乱的诸角色之间跌跌撞撞：他是那运动反射的集簇，是那适应黑暗的流浪者，是台上那活灵活现的人，是那壮志未酬的演员，甚至是为艺术布满地雷的空间中那声音和光线的触发器。他甚至可能被告知他自己就是一个艺术家，并被说服他对其所观察的或绊倒他的东西所作的贡献是它如假包换的认证签名。

《Inside the White Cube》读后感(二)：试译： 托马斯·麦克埃维利（Thomas McEvilley）「序言」（Introduction）

Source: Brian O’Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Berkeley and Los Angelos: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 7-12.

我们这个世纪的独特才能，在于研究事物与其情境（context）的关系，将情境视为事物的构成要件，最终将情境视为事物本身。在这本于1976年首次以三篇文章的形式发表于《艺术论坛》的经典论文集中，布莱恩·奥多尔蒂讨论了二十世纪艺术中这种朝向情境的转向。他或许是首次勘查了现代画廊被高度控制的情境对艺术客体的作用，对观看主体的影响，以及在现代主义成其为自身的关键时刻吞噬客体的方式。

在第一部分中，奥多尔蒂将现代画廊空间描述为“按照与建造中世纪教堂一样严格的法则建造的”。他指出，这些法则背后的基本原理是：“外部世界无法进入，因此窗户通常被封住。墙壁涂成白色，天花板成为光源……艺术是自由的，正如俗话所说，‘拥有自己的生命’。”这种环境的目的与宗教建筑的目的并无不同——艺术作品，像宗教真理一样，要显得“不受时间及其变迁所影响”。显得外在于或超越于时间的状态，意味着声称作品已经属于后代——也就是说，它是良好投资的保证。但它对生活的当下性（presentness）作了奇怪的处理，毕竟生活是在时间中展开的。“艺术存在于一种永恒的展示中，虽有很多‘时期’（如晚期现代），但却没有时间。这种永恒性使画廊处于一种灵泊式（limbolike）的状态；人们必须死后才能在那里。”

在探究这种展览方式的意义时，人们必须看看以类似原则建造的其他类型的密室。这种永恒密室的根源并非在艺术史中，而是在宗教史中，事实上它们甚至比中世纪的教堂还要古老。例如，埃及的墓室就提供了一个惊人的相似之处：它们也被用来消除对外部世界的认识；它们也是保护永恒存在的幻觉不受时间流逝影响的房间；它们也保存绘画和雕塑，那些作品被视为与永恒神奇地毗连，因而能够提供通向它或接触它的机会。在埃及古墓之前，功能上类似的空间是法国和西班牙的马格达莱尼和奥里尼亚克时代的旧石器彩绘洞。在那里，绘画和雕塑也是在一个刻意与世隔绝、难以进入的环境中发现的——大多数著名的洞穴画廊都不在入口附近，有些还需要经过费劲的攀爬和洞穴探险才能到达。

这种仪式性空间是远古脐带的象征性重建，在世界各地的神话中这种脐带曾经连接天堂和尘世。这种连接是为了部落的目的，或者更具体地说，是为了部落中那个阶层或派别的特殊利益而象征性地重建的。由于这是一个似乎能够进入更高形而上学领域的空间，它必须被庇护起来，不受变化和时间的影响。这个被特别隔开的空间是一种非-空间（non-space）、超-空间（ultra-space）或理想空间（ideal space），其中周围的时空矩阵被象征性地废止了。在旧石器时代，充斥着绘画和雕塑的超空间似乎是为了实现生物体神奇复原的目的；来世信仰和仪式亦可能介入其中。到了埃及时代，这些目的已经凝聚到了法老身上：保证他的来世，就是保证其所象征的国家的存续。从这两个目的背后，可以窥见一个阶级或统治集团的政治利益，他们试图通过寻求永恒性的认可来巩固其对权力的控制。在某种意义上，这个过程是一种交感巫术（sympathetic magic），试图通过仪式性地呈献在某种程度上类似所需事物的其他东西来获得某种东西。如果类似某人所需事物的东西出现了，背后潜在的推理就意味着，那么其所需的事物可能就不远了。建造一个所谓不变的空间，或者一个有意掩饰隐藏变化效果的空间，就是在真实的或非仪式性的世界中推行不变性的交感巫术，是从社会价值方面——放在现代就是艺术价值——为现状投射永恒表象的尝试。

我们的展览空间所暗示的永恒性，表面上是艺术后代的永恒性、不死之美的永恒性、杰作的永恒性。但事实上，这是一种特定的可感性（sensibility），具有特定的限制和条件，被美化得如此厉害。通过暗示对某种可感性的永恒认可，白立方暗示了对享有这种可感性的阶层或群体所持主张的永恒认可。作为供该阶层或群体的成员相会的仪式性场所，它剔除了社会差异的世界，推行了对其观点所独有的现实性——因而是其持久性或永恒的正确性——的感知。这样看来，某种权力结构的持久性，是白立方的交感巫术被设计出来的目的。

在第二部分中，奥多尔蒂论述了关于人类自我的假设，这些假设涉及白立方的制度化。他写道：“在艺术作品面前的存在，意味着我们不在自己身边，而在眼睛和观众面前。”他所说的“眼睛”（Eye）指的是专与形式视觉手段相关的去实体化的能力（the disembodied faculty that relates exclusively to formal visual means）。“观者”（Spectator）是自我衰减了和漂白了的生命，让“眼睛”在此出发，同时自己又不做其他事情。正如奥多尔蒂所说，“眼睛”和“观者”是一个已“死”之人进入白立方后留下的全部东西。为了换取白立方提供给我们的那一瞥虚假的永恒性——以及白立方作为我们团结于一个群体的特殊利益周围的象征——我们放弃了我们的人性，成为纸板式的“观者”和去实体化的“眼睛”。为了“眼睛”独立自主活动的强度，我们的生命和自我接受了一个降格了的水平。在典型的现代画廊中，像在教堂中一样，人们不会用正常的声音说话；不会笑、吃、喝、躺或睡；不会生病、发疯、唱歌、跳舞或do i。事实上，由于白立方所宣扬的神话是，我们在那里基本是精神性的存在——“眼睛”是灵魂之眼——我们将被当作凌驾于偶然和变化之上的不知疲倦者。这种纤弱降格的生命形式是宗教圣地传统上所要求的行为类型，在那里重要的是压制个人利益而支持群体利益。白立方本质上的宗教性质，通过它对任何进入它并与之合谋者的人性所做的事情，得到了最有力的表达。在柏拉图时代的雅典卫城中，人们不能吃、喝、说、笑，就像这样。

奥多尔蒂出色地追溯了白立方从西方架上绘画传统中脱离的发展。而后，他从另一个角度将注意力转移到同一类型的发展上，即反形式主义的传统，在这里由杜尚的装置作品《1200个煤袋》（1938年）和《一英里的绳子》（1942年）所代表，这些作品一劳永逸地走出了绘画的框架，使画廊空间本身成为被艺术改变的主要材料。当奥多尔蒂向七十年代的艺术家推荐杜尚的这些作品时，他暗示在过去的四五十年中，在打破分隔这两个传统的“无心”或“不屑”这两种障碍的方面，并未取得很大成就。这种缺乏沟通的情况令人印象深刻，因为艺术家自己已有整整一代尝试着这种对话。例如，伊夫·克莱因展出了一个名为“虚空”的空画廊（1958年）；此后不久，阿曼以一个名为“充盈”（I960年）的展览作为回应，通过用垃圾从地板到天花板、从墙壁到墙壁填满同一个画廊，来辩证地看待克莱因对超验空间的假设，这一空间在世界中却不属于它。迈克尔·阿舍、詹姆斯·李·拜尔斯等人在各种作品中都将空旷的展览空间本身作为其主要材料，遑论被称为“光影与空间”的传统。奥多尔蒂首次发现了表述这些发展的方法。他的文章是这样一种批评的一例，它批评试图消化和分析最近的过去和现在——或者应该说是最近的现在。他认为，我们文化的公共思想经历了一个重大转变，表现为突出白立方作为艺术的核心材料和表达方式以及展示艺术的时尚风格。他将这种成问题的转变标志为现代主义将“自我定义的无情习惯带到了终点”。定义自我意味着有目的地忽视除自我以外的一切。这是一个日益还原的过程，最终会让石板被擦拭干净。

白立方是一个过渡性的装置，它试图通过呼唤所谓的超验存在和权力模式来漂白过去，同时控制未来。但超验原则的问题在于，根据定义它们所说的是另一个世界，而非这个世界。白立方所代表的正是这另一个世界，或者进入它的途径。这就像柏拉图对一个更高形而上学领域的设想，在那里形式像数学那样熠熠生辉地纤弱抽象，与人类在此世的经验生活完全脱节。（柏拉图认为，即使这个世界不存在，纯粹的形式也会存在。）人们很少认识到柏拉图主义的这一面向与现代主义的思维方式有多大关系，尤其是作为现代主义美学背后的一种潜藏的控制结构。纯形式的理念，作为对宗教衰落的补偿性反应部分地得到复苏，并在我们文化对数学不变抽象性的关注下错误地得到推广，最终在美学（和伦理学）中占据了主导地位，白立方就从中产生。柏拉图时代的毕达哥拉斯派包括柏拉图本人都认为，起初是一片空白，那里莫名其妙地出现了一个点，它延伸为一条线，流淌进一个平面，折叠成一个实体，投射下一片阴影，此即我们之所见。这一组元素，一是点，二是线，三是面，四是实体，五是幻像——它们除其自身本质之外被认为是无内容的，这是许多现代艺术的主要配置。白立方代表了光那空白的终极面孔，在柏拉图式的神话中这些元素正是不可言喻地从中演变出来。在这种类型的观念中，原始形状和几何抽象被认为是有生命的，事实上比任何有具体内容的东西更有生命力。白立方的终极意义是这种抹除生命的超验野心，它被伪装起来，被转换为特定的社会目的。奥多尔蒂在本书中的文章是对世界的真实生活的辩护，反对白立方的消毒手术室——为时间和变化辩护，反对纯粹形式的永恒性和超验性的神话。事实上，这些文章实体化了这种抵抗，正如它们所表达的那样。它们是一种奇异的时间提醒，说明今日的最新现实如何迅速成为昨日的经典见解。尽管人们常说，现代主义及其变化或发展的加速度已经终结，但这种变化速度不仅仍然存在，而且还在增加。到1990年，今日所写的文章要么被遗忘，要么像这些文章一样成为经典。

《Inside the White Cube》读后感(三)：互联网时代的艺术品

互联网将如何改变当代视觉艺术的创作方式？

约翰·佐法尼（Johann Zoffany，1733-1810，德国新古典主义画家），《乌菲齐美术馆》（The Tribuna of the Uffizi），1772-78，布面油画，124 x 155 cm。温莎皇家收藏

一代人之前，瓦尔特·本雅明（Walter Benjamin，1892-1940，德国哲学家）的文章《机械复制时代的艺术作品》（The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936）曾得到广泛的讨论。但这本书在出版之时却鲜为人知，直到它影响了安德烈·马尔罗（Andre Malraux，1901-76，法国作家）关于艺术博物馆的著作，并在后来翻译为英语才被读者广为人知。虽然这篇文章的论点与那个时代的历史和政治背景有着密切关联，现在来看许多注释可能已经过时，但用它的观点作为当下社会的指南却仍旧合宜。

瓦尔特·本雅明，《机械复制时代的艺术作品》

《机械复制时代的艺术作品》讨论了视觉艺术的再现所产生的两种截然不同的转变。一个独特的原创作品光环的破坏，导致它被多个副本有效地替代。电影的创作改变了视觉艺术作品的构建方式。古老的绘画和雕塑也因此以新的方式被大众理解。一种新的视觉艺术形式应运而生了。 在电影的早期，像乔治·梅里爱（Georges Melies，1861-1938，法国魔术师及电影制片人）这样的电影，拍摄时用固定的视角训练一组单个场景。但导演们很快就发现了特写、摇摄、长镜头、平行蒙太奇等等对情感的影响。这些先锋艺术家们探索了电影艺术的品性，就像第一批焊接钢材的雕塑家发现了用这种媒介可以做什么一样。

大卫·卡里尔和达伦·琼斯一起出版的《当代艺术画廊：展示、权力和特权》，剑桥学者出版公司出版，2016

几年前，大卫·卡里尔（David Carrier，1944，美国哲学家）和达伦·琼斯（Darren Jones）一起出版了《当代艺术画廊：展示、权力和特权》（ The Contemporary Art Gallery：Display, Power and Privilege ，2016）。他们意识到当下的艺术展示风格已经发生巨大改变，书中更新了布莱恩·奥多尔蒂（Brian O 'Doherty，1928，爱尔兰艺术评论家）的经典著作《白色立方体》（Inside the White Cube，1986）中的一些观点。如今许多画廊不再是白色的立方体。19世纪至今，画廊的照明得到了改善，建筑发生了变化，高档空间成倍的增长。艺术作用的改变，使得政治活动家经常表达了对画廊和它所代表的商业体系的不满。但是，画廊的基本结构并没有改变。它已被证明是一个容器，能够接纳绘画、摄影、雕塑，和无数形式的当代艺术。

布莱恩·奥多尔蒂的经典著作《白色立方体》，THE LAPIS PRESS出版社出版，1986

艾蒂安-路易·布雷（Étienne-Louis Boulée，1728-99，法国新古典主义建筑师），《博物馆的提议：内景》（Proposal for a Museum: Interior View），1785，笔墨水墨，480 x840 cm。现藏于巴黎国立图书馆

然而，从2020年3月起，世界各地的艺术展览突然发生了变化（当然，整个系统性文化也都发生了变化，但我们只讨论艺术世界)。这种变化与左翼政治和新艺术形式的发展没有任何关系。当观看博物馆或画廊艺术展览的唯一途径是通过线上网络时，你不用离开书房或卧室，就可以参观任何一个虚拟的展览。当然，并不是所有的机构都具有部署这些新技术的能力。这种发展突显了大型画廊主导市场的能力，人们也对此评论颇多。

24年前，新西兰惠灵顿城市画廊（City Gallery Wellington）举办了一次回顾展 ——“世界：全球化时代的艺术”（The World Over：Art in The Age of globalization），并在地球另一端的阿姆斯特丹市立博物馆（Stedelijk Museum）也举办了另一场平行展览和艺术论坛“世界，惠灵顿城市画廊”（“The World Over, City Gallery, Wellington,”1997），作为此次活动的补充。由于大多数艺术评论者都无法同时到达惠灵顿和阿姆斯特丹，一张CD-ROM便可以带观众同时参观这两个博物馆和画廊，给他们一种在场馆内前进、左转或右转的错觉。时代和世界就是如此飞速改变着。20年前的那个时代，我们在教室看的是幻灯片教学；到了10年前，我们便通过PowerPoint学习讲座内容；而今天，Zoom、Youtube或其他线上直播已经普遍成为世界必不可少的沟通部分和重要学习资源。

一些机构在这场剧烈的变革中幸存下来。现在，艺术批评的天然家园是互联网，因为评论可以随时被张贴和阅读，而评论的评论也能一起出现。但也有来自不那么遥远的时代的残留。例如，尽管许多美国杂志期刊已经停刊（或重新启动），印刷版的《艺术论坛》（Artforum，1962发刊）却依旧保留其传统的格式：及时的事件的专栏；大量理论性的长篇文章；以及简短的展览评论。有时候，古老的幸存者也很有魅力，正如有些人至今仍然喜欢马车一样。

“封面是让读者了解问题的门户。在理想情况下，一个问题中所展现的所有方面都以某种方式压缩到这张封面图片之中。”—— 蒂姆·格里芬（Tim Griffin），前《艺术论坛》主编

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《Inside the White Cube》读后感(四)：inside the white cube

1. Ideology of the Gallery Space

In his book Inside the White Cube, the Ideology of the Gallery Space (which consists of three essays he first published in the magazine Artforum in 1976), O' Doherty tries to make explicit the ideology that underlies the modern art gallery; The White Cube. When Brian O' Doherty speaks of the 'ideology' of the white cube, he uses the term ideology to indicate a certain worldview that helps to maintain and legitimate certain forms of social domination over others. And although an ideology is always cultural specific, it takes on the form of a universalising gesture; presenting itself as being universal.

Ideology: is a set of conscious and/or unconscious ideas, which constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology is a comprehensive normative vision, a way of looking at things, as argued in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies), and/or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization), as suggested in some Marxist and Critical theory accounts. While the concept of "ideology" describes a set of ideas broad in its normative reach, an ideology is less encompassing than as expressed in concepts such as worldview, imaginary and ontology.

Ideologies are systems of abstracted meaning applied to public matters, thus making this concept central to politics. Implicitly, in societies that distinguish between public and private life, every political or economic tendency entails an ideology, whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought.

Gallery spaces and museums are still white cubes, and their ideology remains one of commodity fetishism and eternal value(s)…

One of the main, dominant characteristic of this ideology of the White Cube would be the dissociation of art from the praxis of life.

O' Doherty describes the modern art gallery as constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church. The basic principle behind these rules is the following: the outside world must not come in. Windows are sealed off, or not even there, everything is painted white, the ceiling becomes the source of light, and the wooden floor is polished so you click along clinically, or carpeted so that you pas soundlessly, resting the feet while the eyes have the wall. The purpose of such a setting is that the artworks are to appear truly autonomous, untouched by the outside world. The outside world, the praxis of life, is left out. Artworks are to appear as outside of time and space, and to exist in a kind of eternity of display.

This dichotomy of 'art' and ' the real, outside world' is the same dichotomy Peter Bürger spoke of in regard to the European avant-garde movement. The avant-garde could be identified, according to Bürger as an attack on the status of art in bourgeois society. The avant-garde negated not an earlier form of art (a style) but art as an institution that is unassociated with the life praxis of men. The avant-gardistes demand that art become practical once again; meaning that art has to function inside society, and not outside it. The avant-garde intended the abolition of autonomous art, wanting art to be integrated into the praxis of life once again.

This same dichotomy between autonomous art and the praxis of life underlies the ideology of the White Cube that O' Doherty describes.

The White Cube is a construction of a supposedly unchanging space. It is a space where the effects of change are deliberately disguised and hidden, in an attempt to cast an appearance of eternality over the works of art that are displayed. It is through this apparent neutrality of appearing outside of daily life and politics that the artworks within the white cube can appear to be self-contained and autonomous. Because the artworks are freed from historical time in the white cube, they can attain an aura of timelessness and purification.

The condition of appearing out of time, or maybe even beyond time, implicitly implies the claim that the artwork already belongs to posterity - that is, in other words: that it is an assurance of good investment. Such a claim to universality is part of the ideology of the White Cube.

2. Historical Paradigms

In his rich text, O' Doherty refers to several historical and artistic developments. In his first essay 'Notes on the Gallery Space' he outlines some important developments of the gallery space from the 19th century onwards. When speaking of the Salon's in the early 19 century, O' Doherty tells us what a gallery is: namely "a definition appropriate for the esthetics of the period." (p15）

When we look at the esthetics of the 19th century gallery space, than this can be upsetting for the modern eye. Masterpieces are hung as if they were wallpaper. Each one not yet separated out and isolated in space from each other. This is so because, according to O' Doherty, the 19th century looked at a subject - not at its edges. Larger pictures rise to the top (easier to see from a distance) and some are tilted out from the wall to maintain the viewer's plane; the "best" pictures stay in the middle zone; small pictures drop to the bottom. The perfect hanging job here is an ingenious mosaic of frames without a patch of wasted walls showing." (p.16) In this period of time each picture was seen as a self-contained entity, totally isolated from its slum-close neighbour by a heavy frame around it and a complete perspective system within. Space was discontinuous and categorizable. The 19th century mind was taxonomic and the 19th century eye recognized hierarchies of genre and the authority of the frame. (p.16)

This changed in the early 20th century. Studying not the field but its limits, and defining these limits for the purpose of extending them is a typical 20th century development. One of the reasons for this is the invention and rise of photography. In a photograph, namely, the location of the edge is a primary decision, since the photograph composes, or decomposes, what it surrounds. And eventually the activity of framing, editing and cropping - in other words, establishing limits - became the major acts of composition. (p.19)

Another greatly important development in the 20th century that is described by O' Doherty is Monet's Impressionism. The very featurelessness of the Impressionist work of art relaxes your eye to look elsewhere. O' Doherty writes: "The edge, eclipsing the subject seems a somewhat haphazard decision that could just as well have been made a few feet left or right. A signature of Impressionism is the way the casually chosen subject softens the edge's structural role at a time when the edge is under pressure from the increasing shallowness of the space." (p.22)

With this large painting, you are hardly conscious of the edge, the painting seems to laterally extend almost forever, though keeping the picture in a perfect balance, without emphasis on the centre at expense of the edges or vice versa.

Thereafter O' Doherty goes on describing a development that is noticeable through the fifties and sixties of the 20th century: the gallery wall itself became an esthetic force, which modified anything shown on it. Frank Stella's show of striped U-, T-, and L-shaped canvasses at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in 1960 for instance "made use" every bit of the gallery wall; floor to ceiling, corner to corner. The hanging there was as revolutionary as the paintings; since the hanging was part of the esthetic, it evolved simultaneously with the pictures. The breaking of the rectangle formally confirmed the autonomy of the gallery wall, altering for good the concept of the gallery space. (p.29). The gallery wall itself now became an esthetic force.

What O' Doherty wants to show us with this discussion of the historical developments in the gallery space is that each period of time has his own esthetics. And the ways works of art are hung on the wall of the gallery are a convention. 'Hanging' is not a neutral activity, although it wishes to appear as such. The way pictures are hung in a gallery space makes certain assumptions about how to look, and about how to evaluate what is offered. "Hanging editorializes on matters of interpretation and value, and is unconsciously influenced by taste and fashion." (p.24) And subliminal cues indicate to the audience its deportment. It should be possible to correlate the internal history of paintings with the external history of how they were hung, O' Doherty thinks. Because the ways in which we evaluate and value pictures, is partly due to their history of display in the gallery space.

QUESTION: to what extend is institution of the White Cube contested here by the artistic strategies of the artist Frank Stella？ Does Stella, with his new emphasis on the walls of the gallery itself, contest or confirm the ideology of the White Cube？

3. Evaluation of specific artworks in relation to the institutional setting

In the second essay 'The Eye and the Spectator' O' Doherty deals with the assumptions about human selfhood that are involved in the institutionalization of the white cube.

The Eye is the disembodied faculty that relates exclusively to formal visual means.

The Spectator is the attenuated and bleached-out life of the self from which the Eye goes fort and which, in the meantime, does nothing else.

The Eye and the Spectator are all what is left of someone who enters the White Cube. In return for the glimpse of (surrogate) eternity that the white cube affords us, we give up our humanness and become the cardboard Spectator with the disembodied Eye. The space of the White Cube offers the thought that while eyes and mind are welcome, space-occupying bodies are not. Your body appears as an intrusion.

In Bennet’s text last week, he suggests that the museum manifests the power of dominan tby targeting the popular body as an object for reform, doing so through a variety of routines and technologies requiring a shift in the norm of bodily comportment. This was accomplished by the direct proｓｃｒｉｐｔion of those forms of behavior associated with places assembly, for example, rules forbidding eating and drinking, outlawing the touching of exhibits and what should be worn and what should not. In this way, while formally free and open, the museum effected its own pattern of informal discrimination and exclusion. In this way, through offering a space of ‘supervised conformity’, the museum offered a context/ideology in which new forms of behavior might become self-acting imperative. For Doherty’ white cube is similiar, by saying that body in the gallery is more like an intrusion and people are alienated from the themselves, he suggusts people manifest the power of dominant and controlled by the ideology of the gallery, and, like the artwork’s context in the gallery is rooted out, people seperate themselves from their own texts too, and only leave eye and spectator in the gallery.

Now there are two extreme cases possible; 1. Art becomes the life of the mind (the Eye disappears into the mind), or 2. Art becomes the life of the body (the Spectator induces its own elimination).(p.64)

An example of the first case is conceptualism. And example of the later would be Body Art, in which the Spectator identifies with the artist, and the artist body, inducing its own elimination.

Duchamp's ceiling turned the gallery space upside down. The ceiling is the floor and the floor is the ceiling. The stove on the floor became the chandelier. This inversion is the first time an artist subsumed an entire gallery in a single gesture - with still other artworks in it! From this moment on, O' Doherty writes, there is a seepage of energy from art to its surroundings. (p.69) But as Duchamp altered the gallery space by turning it upside down, he still accepted the space as a legitimate space for discourse, O' Doherty critically evaluates the work. (p.85)

Piet Mondrian with his Salon de Madame B. a Dresden (artist drawing 1926, installation view 1970) on the other hand truly proposed an alternative to the white cube, O' Doherty argues. Mondrian attempted to introduce a new order that would make the gallery dispensable (p.85), O' Doherty positively evaluates.

O' Doherty wants to show us that, although the white wall cannot be summarily dismissed, it can be understood. This knowledge changes the white wall, since it content is composed of mental projections based on unexposed assumptions. The wall is our assumptions. It is imperative for every artist to know this content and what it does to his/her work. (p.80) See the similarity here with Bourdieu who states that what makes it possible to act free is to objectivate the conditions of your own practice and look through the social structures. When you look through the rules of the game in your field, by having self-relection of your own situation in the institution, you are able to act free, you are able to gain a certain autonomy. In this sense Doherty agree that, and these artists he mentioned also confirmed this argument.

However, to what extent can an artist act free？ Namely, how much autonomy does an artist have according to Doherty and Bourdieu？