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Top Culture Pick 01.04.21

Published on: 
1 April 2021

Art historian, John Francis, our guest editor gives his weekly Top Culture Picks.

All roads lead to London. This week, we head for one of the world's most famous private galleries: The White Cube, established in 1993 by former Etonian Jay Jopling.

The now dominant ‘White Cube aesthetic’ first came about in the early twentieth century. Artists from groups like De Stijl and the Bauhaus preferred to exhibit their works against white walls in order to minimise distraction. White Cube represents many of the rebellious YBA’s (Young British Artists) of the 1980’s: Tracey Emin, Jake & Dinos Chapman and Gavin Turk. Several decades later, in 2015, rebellion returned to the gallery as it was targeted by anti-gentrification activists who graffitied "Yuppies Out" and "Class War" on the walls outside the gallery. Young artists often start out as revolutionaries only later to become part of the moneyed establishment they sought to challenge.

SCROLL through the excellent White Cube website to enjoy an interview with artist Jessica Rankin (7 mins).

Jessica Rankin eloquently discusses her quiet revolution in her exhibition ‘the nostalgia for the infinite’. In the interview the Australian artist, who is New York based, discusses her paintings, use of poetry, and how she found inspiration in John Cage's idea to ‘be unfamiliar to yourself'.

Eros Once Again, 2020 © Jessica Rankin