Going methodically through the art section of my favorite Reading bookshop, where one can get the best espresso in town, I came upon two copies of the “expanded edition” of Brian O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space.[1] I was interested, but both copies were wrapped and sealed in tough plastic. For a rather slim volume, even after its well-advertised expansion, the price was a bit of a surprise, too: fourteen pounds and ninety-five pence. But the raving reviews on the back cover by three art critics, Barbara Rose, Jan van der Marck, and Howard Fox—all of them insiders, no doubt—helped me make up my mind. They were too far fetched to be credible. The ideology of inside reeked from their every word, presaging O’Doherty’s own take. And so I put the book back in its cozy slot. After all, should not the inside of the white cube stay inside, where it can do as little harm as possible?

Footnote

1. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2000.