White Cube Bermondsey and Art Gallery Design in 2011.

The White Cube in Bermondsey is now open and has placed itself firmly on the map of Arts Institutions in the capital. It has placed itself self-conciously in South London marking itself as still at the cutting edge in terms of location and attempting to stay close to the creative roots of emerging artists. However it is not far from Tate Modern and in this respect these two have far more in common. 

White Cube, Bermondsey. Photo by Ed Sykes.

A multi million pound development by architects Casper Mueller Kneer fits perfectly to the brief of a serious gallery providing the ultimate viewing context. Of course it is the White Cube so maybe there was no chance it would stray from the description. It is a sterile environment, akin to a laboratory or a Formula 1 research space. It is cool, very cool and one expects people in white coats to appear from non existent doors with clipboards. They probably would be checking that all the boxes had been ticked in the completition of a contemporary art gallery. Instead there is a small army of black clad curators standing around immobile. ( This could be a new Ron Muerk installation of course) When I visited there were more curators looking at me than there were people looking at the art on the walls. It was Big Brother meets Stanley Kubricks 2001 (updated 2011)

Saatchi Gallery, Boundary Road, London. Photo by Ed Sykes.

Déjà vu. Saatchi Gallery 20 years ago had a lot of white and the only development since there has been the incorporation of a grey concrete floor.  So there you have it the ultimate experience in viewing art with nothing to distract you. It is hermetically sealed and devoid of contact with the outside world but galleries do not have to be this way. Indeed there are plenty of examples around the world where location and context have been used imaginatively. Martin Caiger Smith wrote an excellent article about this in Architecture Today. There are curators and architects who have embraced the challenge and indeed the potential for showing artworks in a new context can at times be thrilling and revealing, not only for the viewer but for the artist themselves.