Indian Artists and the ‘White Cube’
Candidate 644453
Figure 1: Chanda Mama door ke (From Far Away Uncle Moon Calls), Subodh Gupta, 2015
Subodh Gupta’s practice, which uses sculpture, painting and installation to animate everyday objects, transcends international borders; “domestic objects – utensils, cutlery, vessels, buckets – are either magnified or multiplied to create an effect of monumentality or abundance”, as Aveek Sen notes in Everything is Inside. His work intends to create awareness of the issues facing contemporary society in India. The situation of these works within art galleries creates a platform where they may become accessible to a global audience. This has arguably contributed to Gupta’s success in the art market; referred to once as “The Damien Hirst of India”, today his work commands prices that are internationally competitive. His signature becomes “more than a gesture…to a certain extent, the equivalent of a description”. However while value has been created in this form, the artist’s decision to elevate everyday objects within the gallery space may be problematic. The context risks undermining the egalitarian nature of his practice as it may be considered inaccessible to the working class citizens whose lifestyle he aims to project. Gupta’s position as an Indian artist operating within the international art market thus exposes a paradox within art; while his work attempts to instigate discourse about the lives of millions of Indians, it simultaneously risks isolating some as it enters the capitalist domain of the market.
The contradictory nature that art practice may assume has varied implications in today’s ever-smaller society. Various cultural approaches are no longer mutually exclusive with the dynamic exchange of ideas made possible as a result of the information age. In Homi Bhabha’s terms, the conversation between cultural ideas creates an in between space which “provide[s] the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood…that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration”. This notion of ‘Cultural Hybridity’ will play an important role throughout this discourse as I investigate the implications of a ‘Western’ approach to presenting art in a South Asian context. In particular, I will focus on the ‘White Cube’ gallery, as defined by Brian O’Doherty in Inside the White Cube, and its impact on contemporary artists and the wider society in India, where the country’s colonial history has contributed to the impact of foreign institutions today.
As Saloni Mathur explains, “the establishment of museums, exhibitions, and art institutions in the subcontinent…were central to the project of cultural “improvement” in the colony”, however today the museum-going culture in India remains in its infancy in a society where a high proportion of citizens struggle to meet their primary needs. The museum has not yet become the “indispensable feature of the bourgeois nation-state” as Donald Preziosi describes happening in Europe during the nineteenth century. It is for this reason, along with the rapid growth of the international art market through auction houses and art fairs during the late 20th century, that galleries have moved to target a smaller, more educated audience in the region.
I must clarify at this early stage that this essay does not attempt to revive the historic binary that has existed between the west and the ‘Other’. I recognise that my approach to historicisation is formed by the “knowledge system [that] is firmly embedded in institutional practices that invoke the nation state at every step”. My understanding of culture is defined by the nation-state, and consequently this discourse risks introducing a binary between the ideology of two distinct regions. As Leela Gandhi notes “Texts, more than any other social and political product…are the most significant instigator and purveyors of colonial power”. This is not an assessment of a western ideal imposed on the East, however. The relationship between the white cube and the Indian art world will not be defined in anyway similar to Edward Said’s identification of “the relationship between Occident and Orient [as one of] power, of domination, of varying degrees of complex hegemony”. Instead this discourse will provide a critical reflection upon the evolution of an approach to presenting art that has evolved to become a globally accepted standard. In Bhabha’s words, I will understand the evolution of the art gallery in India as “the social articulation of difference…a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorise cultural hybridises that emerge in moments of historical transformation”. I will also look to Bhabha’s notion of ‘Ambivalence’ to understand the relationship between the white cube and Indian culture. Cultural exchange during India’s colonial history has created an ambivalent relationship between ideologies associated with the former coloniser and those associated with the former colony. Consequently this creates both opportunities and challenges that result from the realisation of hybridity in a rapidly globalising world; it is these implications that I will also seek to understand.
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The ideology of the white cube may be described as western as the space’s “various roots” arguably came together at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s. These various roots include the varied viewing experiences offered by the rise of public museums in the 18th century across Europe and the USA, which “connoisseurs believed allowed for a better comparison of styles and movements”, as Abigail Cain writes. MoMA presented the culmination of these ideals in a single modern gallery space, which would later be defined by Brian O’Doherty as the white cube:
“The ideal gallery subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere with the fact that it is “art.” The work is isolated from everything that would detract from its own evaluation of itself.”
– Brian O’Doherty
Figure 2: Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936. Abigail Cain suggests it is with this show that the “white cube really came together” (Cain, “How the White Cube”).
As Elena Filipovic adds, the Museum of Modern Art’s embrace of this architectural language resulted in the white cube becoming a “cipher for institutional officiousness” where “an artwork belongs there because it is there”.
O’Doherty’s definition of the space deeply informed the decisions of contemporary galleries when designing spaces, including the White Cube branded galleries by Jay Jopling. The dissemination of this ideology across the globe subsequently occurred for two reasons:
The international growth of the market, which may be traced to the late 1900s, introduced auction houses including Christie’s and Sotheby’s to markets such as China and India, while art fairs became widely adopted worldwide. Olav Velthuis identifies the fair as “a new means for art collectors to economise on search time for art”, pushing artists to compete beyond the local, and look towards the international contemporary art scene.
The white cube’s “eternity of display” created the basis for a “universal museum”, where the withdrawn presentation space could enable all artists to participate in the market, a notion which Thomas Krens, founder of the Guggenheim, advocated.
The ideology of the gallery space has been materially realised differently across the globe, so I would like to identify the three key features of the white cube which I believe best outline O’Doherty’s original definition:
Eternal Display:
O’Doherty notes that “the ideal gallery subtracts from the artwork all cues that interfere with the fact that it is ‘art’”. The white walls, clean finish and polished floor create an “eternity of display”, while ample negative space suggests “eyes and minds are welcome, [but] space-occupying bodies are not”.
Higher Metaphysical Realm:
Thomas McEvilley likens the white cube to Plato’s “vision of a higher metaphysical realm where form…is utterly disconnected from the life of human experience below”. The space creates a “unique chamber of esthetics” where only outside of it “art can lapse into secular status”.
Added Value:
Simon Sheikh suggests that artworks not only attain an eternal, metaphysical presence, but also discover lasting economic value in the space. Galleries are designed to maximise this financial opportunity, for example MoMA’s 53rd St. building, which was architected to be “commercial rather than monumental, taking cues from the department store with its glass-fronted first floor”.
Figure 3: Chatterjee and Lal Gallery, 2015
These features are non-instructive, implemented to a selected degree as interior designers have responded to the original architecture of spaces. For example Mortimer Chatterjee explains how Chatterjee and Lal Gallery has had to “hide parts of the original architecture of the space in response to our artists who have found that their art was fighting against these elements”.
O’Doherty does not define the space without challenging it, questioning whether the aesthetics of the space “artify” the work and create an impenetrable status of importance. Elena Filipovic continues this argument, suggesting that the white cube “circumscribes an attitude toward art…and an aura that confers a halo of inevitability, of fate, on whatever is displayed inside it”. The space may categorise the purpose with which art exists within the institution; as Simon Sheikh describes, the white cube determines “between that which is to be kept outside (the social and the political) and that which is inside (the staying value of the art)”. Artists from all over the world have participated in this conversation, such as Sri Lankan artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas, whose When Platitude Becomes Form addresses the impact of the gallery in defining the contemporary:
Figure 4: Installation view of When Platitude Becomes Form, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, 2013
“This ongoing enterprise reconfigures for the international (western) market artworks by Sri Lanka’s foremost young contemporary artists…Purchasing artworks through Sri Lanka’s most prominent new gallerists, rather than dealing with the artists themselves, I physically translate what counts as “contemporary” in Sri Lanka to what is expected of the “contemporary” at the heart of art-imperial power”.
– Christopher Kulendran Thomas
For this reason I have chosen to better understand how this space exists in a non-western nation. Reception to Indian art and education within the subject remains different to that in the west, where experience of the arts through museums and institutions is comparatively less to that in Europe. However the work of artists including Subodh Gupta indicates the hybrid nature of the Indian art world as the white cube ideology has been embraced by local galleries. Gupta’s work uses the space to highlight prominent issues facing Indian society; High Life (2001) creates a relationship between a footstool and armchair, where “the balance of power and occupation of space clearly tips in favour of the latter”. However the same work that attends to the implications of India’s neo-colonial relationship with Britain may simultaneously alienate working class citizens in the country due to the potentially exclusive nature of the space.
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Meeting with Uma Jain, owner of Dhoomimal Art Gallery, gave me an insight into the history of India’s modern and contemporary gallery market. Dhoomimal originally emerged as a locus for artists and like-minded individuals to meet, learn and practice, but today the gallery has evolved to meet market demands. The purpose of the space has aligned with that of commercial galleries and sits in the central shopping district of Connaught Place. The area attracts a host of international brands such as Nike and Starbucks, and has become a popular destination for the wealthiest citizens in the city and international tourists. Consequently the gallery has had to refine its target audience and embrace the ‘Added Value’ feature of the white cube.
The impact of Indian modern artists who studied western techniques during the 20th century may have played a part in instigating this change. The Bombay Art Society emerged during this time as a group of predominantly western educated “masters of academic painting”; artists such as Francis Newton Souza were introduced to European techniques including oil painting on canvas. Sayed Haider Raza, co-founder of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group which launched in 1947 (the same year India gained independence from the British rule), is another artist who followed his education in India by moving to Paris to study at the École national supérieure des Beaux-Arts. As Geeta Kapur notes, the Bombay Progressives “were the most ‘correctly’ modernism”, learning western formal approaches to a variety of media. This cultural exchange accelerated the demand for the art market to arrive in India, which in turn required an institution where artworks could more easily be presented and purchased.
The late 20th century saw the arrival of many galleries which looked to display the works of artists over more expansive spaces. Shireen Gandhy, daughter of gallerist and collector Kekoo Gandhy, notes the challenges galleries such as her family’s faced during the late 20th and early 21st century:
“Artists were thinking big, scales and work output increased and if we the older galleries did not upscale, there were others waiting in the wings.”
– Shireen Gandhy
Gandhy alludes to the competition in the gallery circle which emerged as the international market grew in India. Christie’s began selling Indian art to “the affluent Indian diaspora in London and New York” in 1995, resulting in a surge in value for works by ‘Modern Masters’. The pool of Indian speculators “who acquired works hoping to quickly resell them at significant margins” developed, which Amy Kazmin likens to “flip[ping] stocks or upmarket apartments in New Delhi or Mumbai” in the Financial Times. Art fairs and biennales proliferated, providing opportunities for artists in the region. Olav Velthuis suggests three reasons for this growth:
Collectors were able to find art on a global platform with ease
The event created a new cultural experience
Fairs supported the “status-driven nature of the market”, for example by “distinguishing visitors by providing selected groups with VIP-treatment”.
Figure 5: Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Mumbai, 2014
Perhaps it was the arrival of Nature Morte in 1997 that propelled galleries in India to embody the new standard for the contemporary art institution. The gallery offered opportunities for artists to work on a large scale and with a variety of media, its current space providing even more flexibility. The space embodied the three aforementioned white cube ideals, becoming the first to be included in prominent international art fairs including Art Basel and Frieze New York. This may be due to the influence of Peter Nagy, the gallery’s American founder, whose understanding of the American institution informed the architectural development of the space. Consequently the gallery has enabled a range of artists to emerge on the global market; as Sameer Reddy describes in W Magazine, the gallery and its founder “have become synonymous with the emergence of the contemporary Indian art market, catapulting artists like Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher…to international fame”.
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Today Nature Morte participates in international exhibitions, fairs and auctions that bring attention to the nation’s leading contemporary artists, including Subodh Gupta. The artist uses distinctly Indian objects and materials within his work to surface conversation surrounding his identity and background growing up in a small city in Patna, Bihar. For example in My mother and me (1999), Gupta uses cow dung to articulate a hut; the material may be insignificant to many but “becomes something holy in this part of the world”. Today the artist’s work is an evolution of this approach, carefully considering the choice of material to communicate the value of certain objects in Indian culture. His relationship with Nature Morte evolved during the 1990s, when Nagy’s understanding for conceptual contemporary practice enabled him to spot Gupta’s work:
Figure 6: My mother and me, Subodh Gupta, 1999
“…when I changed my work in 1995-96 and began doing different kinds of work – installation and object-based work – no one was supporting me here….Peter was showing my kind of art. He took that risk.”
– Subodh Gupta
The three features of the white cube, as embodied by Nature Morte, have played a crucial role in enabling Gupta’s work to compete on a global scale:
Eternal Display:
Gupta’s conceptual works require an un-interrupting space. For example Faith Matters (2010) instigates conversation about the “ceaseless travel [of food] through the silk and spice routes” in the East. Steel objects are presented countlessly throughout the show, in different, sometimes monumental, sizes. These dishes represent a significant part of Indian culture and are formulated into complex structures. The space must therefore be simple and focused to inspire the audience to engage with the work at a conceptual level.
Figure 7: Faith Matters, Subodh Gupta, 1999
The Eternal Display is also a single platform for Indian artists to travel and engage with international artists. The Indian Highway Project took place in several international cities including London (2008) and Beijing (2012), enabling emerging and prominent Indian artists to share “social and political issues key to the Indian situation, including environmentalism, religious sectarianism, gender, sexuality, and class” across the world. This opportunity for cultural exchange was made possible by the white cube’s singular aesthetic that enables artists to install their work in any similar space, while expecting the same attention and focus.
Higher Metaphysical Realm:
The focused experience of the white cube that attracts an educated audience was crucial to the Indian Highway Project’s success; a visitor in London or Beijing would likely enter the exhibition with an understanding for how to approach the work. The gallery space is designed to attract the interest of those who will understand the value of the conceptual work within. Gupta’s choice of objects are commonly found in India culture and society; their existence is not exclusive to the works of art within which they exist. The creation of a space that is separated from the everyday enables his work to embody its own significance, different to that which the individual objects are used for in society. Gupta may also use the aesthetic of the space to subtly critique this approach to practice; by placing everyday objects in the centre of a room Gupta creates an aura around something that may previously have been considered useless or ordinary. He elevates the process of observing something which viewers may not consider important outside of the gallery context, creating a dichotomy between the actual object and how the space enables it to be considered a work of art.
Added Value:
By using everyday objects Gupta identifies the importance that art can play in distributing culturally significant artefacts and making them relevant to a wider audience. Gupta embraces the international art market as an opportunity for contemporary artists across the country to showcase ideas and express their identities on a respected stage. The market creates jobs for artists, but also curators, collectors and gallerists, and invites western tourists for whom an approach to galleries is more culturally defined. Gupta’s work thus embraces the exchange of art within the capitalist framework as an important way for art to be recognised as valuable in society. As Raqs Media Collective suggest, the application of monetary value to a work of art enables it to “acquire a candidacy for a particular kind of commodity status as against all other commodities”.
Gupta’s example is not exclusive; Velu Viswanadhan, Bharti Kher, and Sudarshan Shetty are just a few other examples of artists who employ the gallery space to access a global audience. Gupta’s success story is uncommon, however. Given the complexity and competitive nature of the Indian contemporary art market it is important to recognise challenges created by the gallery space.
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This begins with the implied prioritisation of the art market and educated citizens over the masses. The aforementioned difference in museum-going practice and education in the arts between Indian and western culture has resulted in contemporary galleries remaining relatively withdrawn from the public sphere. This results in fewer public art spaces and ultimately fewer opportunities for the public to engage with the subject. This cycle may be identified as a product of the white cube’s three features:
Eternal Display
Walter Mignolo recognises that globalisation does not work for all, and so results in two distinct “orientations”:
“On the one hand, globalisation of a type of economy known as capitalism…and the diversification of global politics are taking place. On the other, we are witnessing the multiplication and diversification of anti-neo-liberal globalisation”.
– Walter Mignolo
A similar division may be seen in the art world; competition risks alienating artists who do not wish to adapt their practice to function within the domain of the white cube. While considering Indian artists, the difference may be seen by an artist represented by Nature Morte and another working with Clark House Initiative. The latter is not a white cube but a space that focuses on creative collaboration and curation. Nature Morte’s representation of artists in the global sphere is much more prominent than Clark House, however, potentially challenging artists to choose between international recognition/commercial success in the white cube or other, less prominent spaces.
Higher Metaphysical Realm
In a country where a significant proportion of citizens struggle to meet their primary needs, the white cube may be described as elitist. For example while Gupta’s practice attempts to shed light on inequality within India, his objects placed within the gallery space do not directly counteract this problem.
Added Value
The gallery’s role in creating economic value has created a space where Indian artists compete for recognition by a mix of elite Indian and international collectors. While the ‘Eternal Display’ creates competition on the international stage, the same is not necessarily true within India. The market depends largely on select artists such as Subodh Gupta, while up-and-coming contemporaries are less likely to find opportunities to compete with international counterparts within the country. This resolves in an elitist circle within which art is consumed, as the Guardian’s Randeep Ramesh suggests:
“Indian-born but foreign-based Indians, especially those who are self-made, see the new art as a way of reconfirming their ethnic identity and as an opportunity to move up into the rarefied world of elitist arts. The result is rapid inflation in art prices.”
– Randeep Ramesh
The challenges that are associated with the white cube ideology expose the paradoxical nature that art assumes within capitalist society, and creates debate regarding the influence of the global economy in India. Geeta Kapur critiques the influence of the IMF and the World Bank which have significantly impacted India’s economic policies and may have led to “the virtual surrender of national sovereignty”. The gallery’s proliferation within India may arguably be following this trend. It has introduced an “aesthetic hierarchy” where the institution “manages the senses and shapes sensibilities by establishing norms of the beautiful and the sublime, of what art is and what it is not”.
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For this reason some individuals within the Indian art community are using the ideology of the space to address the problems it creates. ‘Cultural Hybridity’ becomes crucial as artists and curators work to find the balance between a space that originated in the west but is now a significant part of India’s global contemporary art platform. The white cube’s three features have been employed in this critique:
Eternal Display
Nature Morte works with artists who do not always choose to work within the white cube space. Asim Waqif designs installations such as Archival Prints Ka Achaar (2015-16), which was presented in the Autolysis exhibition at a disused warehouse space in Mehrauli, New Delhi. The brick work and natural wear of the architecture provides an alternative context for the art:
“[The exhibition’s] iteration outside of the setup of the white-cube space of the gallery is significant, for it enables Waqif to undermine the commercial value of a work of art and instead focus on its context”.
– Nature Morte
Figure 8: Archival Prints Ka Achaar, Asim Waqif, 2015-16
By rendering the work more important than its economic value, Waqif indirectly uses the ideology of the white cube (such as the space embodied by the gallery which represents him) to argue against the commodification of art that results from the space. He focuses less on the material, and more on access:
“What’s much more interesting is, who can access the work? Who can come see it? Contemporary Indian art is so disjointed from the public. It’s elitist. I want to connect with the average person in India”.
– Asim Waqif
Higher Metaphysical Realm
Institutions such as Clark House Initiative in Mumbai are working outside of the white cube. The gallery’s directors and artists curate exhibitions collaboratively, providing a space for all to work together to understand an idea or topic. Membership is not dictated by the ‘saleability’ of the work, but instead “from basic tenets of humanism – Friendship, Anti-Racism…and understanding the project of Modernism as an economic and political reality outside the occident”. Clark House’s artists expose elements of their social and political environment, for example Kundan Shanbag whose films provide transparency into the relevance marriage has to the Indian middle class, as well as the personal and economic impact this has on an individual and their family.
Furthermore events such as the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) have introduced the art fair to India while challenging expectations. Bose Krishnamarchari, founder of the first KMB, recalls that the first event was met with criticism for using the word ‘biennale’, “with the argument that it is a western construct, and we were accused of importing imperialism
Figure 9: Home Videos exhibited at Clark House Initiative, 2017 back onto the shores of Kochi”. Today the event has been embraced by the locals for adopting a unique approach:
“The inaugural Biennale brought alive Kochi’s empty warehouses, abandoned piers, overgrown yards and derelict buildings…and gave Kochi’s precolonial, colonial and postcolonial cosmopolitanism a fresh narrative”.
– Geeta Kapur
Figure 10: Echo Armada at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Rigo 23, 2012
The KMB thus requires viewers to “re-look at what they know or are familiar with”, in regards to both the work and the space.
Added Value
Private collectors are working with galleries to open independent museums. For example the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art opened in Delhi in 2010, operating as a not-for-profit with a collection that spans from modern to contemporary Indian artists. Kiran Nadar explains her goal to make the museum open for all and to educate; “we do school outreach programs, workshops – whatever we can do to foster the arts”.
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These examples indicate “the slippery notion of culture and its inherent hybridity”, as Claire Hanlon notes in reference to Bhabha’s discourse on the subject. Individuals and events challenging the white cube are working hard to negotiate a new, more accessible relationship between contemporary art and the wider public in India. The KMB attempts to make art more accessible by taking place outside of the white cube and responding to the city, but it does not solve the problem; its location in the state of Kerala, where the population is highly literate, only opens doors for the educated citizen. As Jitish Kallat notes, “what might appear to be an untutored audience…is an audience that has seen very little art, but is extremely adept with other forms of knowledge”. In this way the KMB attempts to address the ambivalent nature of the white cube in India; while a step outside of the gallery space, the biennale still attracts a specific audience in an attempt to democratise the experience of art.
The discourse I have addressed thus reminds us of the ‘Ambivalent’, dynamic nature of cultural exchange. The implications of ‘Cultural Hybridity’ are equivocal, especially when considering the complex history between Britain and its former colony. The very idea of Modernity in a colony during the 20th century may be oxymoronic, where “its imposition is itself the denial of historical freedom, civic autonomy and the ‘ethical’ choice of refashioning”. Ultimately the concept of ‘Cultural Hybridity’ must be addressed with an understanding of its implications. The interaction of two distinct ideals will require an opportunity for terms to be negotiated that ensure a globalised vision works for all citizens. The conversation above is an example of this; the emergence of the white cube ideology in India is one that may have introduced opportunities for some, but not for many. This implication cannot be ignored, especially in a country where religious art, craft and cinema provide alternative, more accessible forms of culture.
Exposing the challenges created by the space creates an opportunity to retire the paradox between art’s activist and commercial capabilities. After all, why can’t institutions provide a place open for all to learn while enabling the circulation of art in the commercial market? The UK’s democratic decision to leave the European Union reminds us that it is crucial to ensure opportunities created by globalisation reach all citizens rather than a select few. By understanding the impact of cultural ideologies in different parts of the globe, such as the white cube in India, we may better understand how to create conversation and spaces that encourage opportunities for all. Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s work already begins this discussion; New Eelam asks the urgent
Figure 11: New Eelam, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, 2016 questions of how “a reactionary response to neo-nativism and anti-globalism [may] look like for communities that still pursue dreams of multiculturalism”. Above all we have the opportunity to develop a new approach to globalisation that articulates a more understanding relationship between various cultural ideas, so we must use it to enable the fruition of a global culture that is fit for the 21st century market.