The "White Cubes – Gendered Cubes" research project investigates the fundamental structuring and constitution of art museums through constructions of gender difference, using the Hamburg Kunsthalle as an example. The art museum's treatment of gender as a knowledge category and the possible impacts of theoretical debates on gender difference on institutional art museum discourses are analysed.
The "White Cubes – Gendered Cubes" research project analyses the ways in which debates about the effects of gender difference have an impact on art-historical knowledge. The research surveys the developments and changes in these debates over the past four decades. Gender relations and constructions are inscribed in the discursive field of art (and art history) as tradition: inclusion and exclusion processes legitimize some knowledge, and reject other knowledge. Insights from feminist theory in the 1980s, for example, revealed that the art history canon was based on the ideal of a classless and genderless figure, so that everything that was "female" and "non-white" was excluded, or became the subject matter of art as an artistic "other". The research project considers the impact that such insights from feminist theory have had, and continue to have, on art history. Accordingly, the research is focused on the inscriptions of various feminist and gender theory approaches in art history since the emergence of the second women's movement. These are investigated by analysing the ways in which gender is represented in art-historical knowledge.
Art-historical knowledge is produced by a range of different institutions. One of the main locations for its formation is the art museum, which is the focus of this research. Legitimized art history knowledge is passed on and manifested in museums through their exhibition and collection practice. At the same time, however, canonized knowledge is also transformed by museum practices, which always include an element of interpretation. The art museum, which (contrary to the popular misconception) is not a neutral and contextless space/"White Cube" (Brian O’Doherty, 1976), is at the heart of this research. The project explores the art museum not as a "white cube", but as a "gendered cube". It analyses the changes seen in the art museum's treatment of gender during the debates on gender difference.
Multiple aspects of museum practice are critically examined in terms of their production of inclusions and exclusions: the collection and exhibition of works of art, their interpretation and communication, and also their positioning in the museum spaces. What role does knowledge of the effects of gender difference play in collections today? How was gender represented in 1960s interpretations as compared with the 1980s? What does the positioning of specific works of art tell us about the prevailing concept of gender in art history? The research project addresses these and other questions in its investigation of a set of selected art museums.
The "White Cubes – Gendered Cubes" research project is also the thesis project of Jennifer John at the University of Bremen, supervised by Prof Sigrid Schade (Head of ICS/ZHdK).
Thesis
White Cubes – Gendered Cubes. Einschreibungen von Geschlecht in die diskursiven Praktiken von Kunstmuseen. Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel der Hamburger Kunsthalle (Assignments of gender in the discourse practices of art museums. An investigation using the Hamburg Kunsthalle as an example). University of Oldenburg 2010.
Publications
-
«Sprechen von «Blick-Wechsel» in der Ausstellung Eva und die Zukunft. Geschlechtliche Konstruktionen von Kunstgeschichte im Museum.» (Talking of a "change of viewpoint" in the "Eve and the Future" exhibition. Gender constructions of art history in the museum) in: Kornelia Imesch, Jennifer John and Daniela Mondini, Sigrid Schade (eds.): Inscriptions/Transgressions. Kunstgeschichte und Gender Studies, Akten der Jahrestagung der VKKS 2005 (Art history and gender studies, provisions of the annual conference of VKKS 2005), in the series: Kunstgeschichten der Gegenwart (Art histories of the present), Lang Verlag Berlin 2007.
- «Darstellungen von Eva und anderen Frauen. Geschlechterkon-struktionen im Blickfeld des Kunstmuseums» (Representations of Eve and other women. Gender con-structions in the art museum). In: jongHolland. Beeldende kunst en visuele cultuur, No. 4, 2006, pp. 22–27.
- Bildwechsel. Die Integration der Kategorie Geschlecht in Kunstmuseen. (Change of viewpoint. The integration of the category of gender in art museums) in: Thesis. Cahier d'histoire des collections et de Muséologie, No. 4, 2004, pp. 11–18.