Glass Box

Although the white cube has served as the institutional standard for exhibiting modern and contemporary artworks and continues to be utilized for its perceived neutrality, it does not serve every medium of art equally well. Through the critique of the white cube exhibition model I analyze an equally significant model which I have termed the “glass box.” By applying the glass box model to exhibitions in recent history such as Andy Warhol’s Bonwit Teller window display in 1961, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field (1965), Dan Graham’s Half Square/Half Crazy (2004) and Kusama’s Louis Vuitton store display in New York City in 2012, I investigate the various ways in which the properties of this model affect viewer experience. While the glass box is not a fixed utopian ideal of how one should experience contemporary art, its accessibility becomes more apparent in the context of everyday life.