Departing from the curatorial structure of dOCUMENTA (13) and its four states of being—under siege, on stage, on retreat, and in a state of hope—Iwona Blazwick undertakes a historical excursion into the history and concept of the exhibition. The Director of London's Whitechapel Gallery describes an aesthetic practice of curating that has contributed considerably toward opening up the institutional frameworks of museums and galleries to alternative forms of presentation. On one hand, art increasingly leaves behind the neutral white cube of public exhibition halls, with artists preferring empty industrial buildings or storefronts. On the other, the white cube—such as the one at the Whitechapel Gallery, which is surrounded by the pulsating life of London's East End—is able to maintain its position as a slower-paced place of retreat, "a refuge," and can hope for the "invention of new cultural forms."

 

Iwona Blazwick (*1945) is Director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London and a member of the Honorary Advisory Committee of dOCUMENTA (13).