“Into the Black Wall of the White Cube”

The White Cube demands from its audience and goers a certain attitude and behavior. One does not clap in front of a painting in admiration of it. One does not talk loudly inside a gallery. One does not run inside a gallery. Each and everyone of the White Cube’s audience’s body language is similar in one way or another. The White Cube dictates what you should do inside it. It is a phenomenon.

Jump to Caravaggio who committed murder and was always on the run. There is evidence of intense fear and trauma in his works. His use of chiaroscuro and black backgrounds emphasized a grim, somber, and unsettling climate to his works.

Into the Black Wall of the White Cube synthesizes both the White Cube and Caravaggio’s dominant use of black in his works. When the White Cube dictates the behavior of its audience and controls their body, I seek solace in Caravaggio’s use of black to create an unsettling experience.

Simply put, this work is turning the whiteness of the White Cube, the holiness of the White Cube, into black, into grim, somber, and unsettling.