honorable mention
Jisun Lee united states
title
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Brian O’Doherty’s essay Inside the White Cube, “investigates what the highly controlled context of the modernist gallery does to the art object, what it does to the viewing subject, and, in a crucial moment for modernism, how the context devours the object, becoming it.” (O’Doherty, 7) The continuing relevance of his forty-year old essay provides the underpinning of my investigation. He argued that the white cube grants the illusion of an eternal presence for artworks and is the most effective environment in which to present them. I don’t argue with that. I want to explore, emulate and yet rupture the nature of those characteristics through my photographs.
My work has always dealt with urban space per se and its functional relationship to human behavior and thinking. This project is an extension of that interest, one that begins with my own initial reactions to the constructed contemporary art space. Confusion, disorientation, idealism, and mostly, irony are the feelings I encounter when I’m surrounded by white walls. I want to redirect the audiences’ attention to the nature of white space, not to artworks within a space.
back to gallery
entry description
Because of my sense of duty as a photographer, and as a MFA student in New York, I have to spend a fair amount of time in environments like museums and galleries. The experience of being in so-called “white cubes,” as I repeatedly re-visit them over and over again, made me think about how artwork functions in white space and how the white cube gives art a compelling aura. The carefully controlled design and architecture of white cubes tells us a lot about how the contemporary art world functions.Brian O’Doherty’s essay Inside the White Cube, “investigates what the highly controlled context of the modernist gallery does to the art object, what it does to the viewing subject, and, in a crucial moment for modernism, how the context devours the object, becoming it.” (O’Doherty, 7) The continuing relevance of his forty-year old essay provides the underpinning of my investigation. He argued that the white cube grants the illusion of an eternal presence for artworks and is the most effective environment in which to present them. I don’t argue with that. I want to explore, emulate and yet rupture the nature of those characteristics through my photographs.
My work has always dealt with urban space per se and its functional relationship to human behavior and thinking. This project is an extension of that interest, one that begins with my own initial reactions to the constructed contemporary art space. Confusion, disorientation, idealism, and mostly, irony are the feelings I encounter when I’m surrounded by white walls. I want to redirect the audiences’ attention to the nature of white space, not to artworks within a space.
back to gallery
