Exhibitions Outside the Gallery Space in China in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

Traditional exhibition space has widely been described as a "white cube" as it is usually built in museums and art galleries and uses white boxes or white backgrounds to set off exhibits. Placing exhibits in white square boxes can emphasize the artworks’ value, but widen the distance between visitors and exhibits. Artists, designers, and curators have paid efforts to explore exhibitions in non-gallery exhibition spaces outside the white cube all over the world throughout history. This paper will focus on the exhibitions in non-gallery exhibition spaces practiced in China in the twenty-first century. Through field visits and case studies, this paper displays non-gallery exhibitions in three types of space involving the tourist space, the living space, and the shopping space. By reflecting on the interaction among exhibits, the space, and the public, three characteristics of exhibitions in non-gallery exhibition space are summarized, including exhibits re-created for the space, integration of the exhibition into the space, and integration of exhibits, the space, and the public. Understanding exhibitions in non-gallery space in modern China is expected to extend the traditional "white cube" exhibition mode and encourage explorations of exhibition modes in different types of space in the Chinese context.