Hospital Room 2002

Material: wood, plaster boards, lacquer varnish, wall paint, floor paint
Dimensions: 310 x 650 x 450 cm 
Location: Munich, G

http://www.tomaz-kramberger.com/004_works_tomaz_kramberger_hospital_room_2002_en.html

The white colour existed as an overwhelming tenor. White, often postulated as purity, neutrality, spirituality, innocence, the sublime etc. These makes me think that hospitals could be “white space”.

"White was believed to help the patient's convalescence, a reason why military hospitals were often covered in white."

Every time I entered a hospital, I suddenly felt isolated from the outside world. The colour white plays a big part of giving a feeling of “stopping” and disconnecting, instead of “time”.  Also I think white in hospitals feels hopeless and makes people give away all their desires and ambitions. Maybe this is another reason why it is a good place for curing and recovering.

Charlie Chaplin - The Dentist (1914) Silent Film

Silent film is good example of white space used in film making, as everything’s going on without sounds. I think it is a comeback to people’s natural behaviour. To be more specific, visual information is believed to be the most effective form of information to us. Therefore, it’s not difficult for us to understand even it is without any sounds. I think silent film is a perfect example of “white space”, because it express senses to the audience mainly through invoking imagination.

Installation view:
Felix Gonzalez-Torres

David Zwirner Gallery, New York, NY

“His aesthetic project was, in which creative expression transforms the spectator from an inert receiver to an active, reflective observer and motivates social action.”

Through employing simple objects, such as stacks of paper and strings of lights, the artist created a space with reduced aesthetic to address themes such as love and loss, sickness, gender and sexuality.

I can see strong features of Minimalism and Conceptualism in his work. Half of the space he created is “white space”: The walls and roof are painted white, empty occupies the whole space and work with physically simple objects such as white paper, sunlight, shadows and blue curtain. The “white space” strategy has effectively expressed the sense of calm to me, as well as makes me curious about what the artist intend to address. Standing in such an empty space with considerable minimal items, it’s really easy to make people participate in establishing meanings and invoke their imagination.

His works are all inspiring because I get the point of employing empty and the meaning of leaving white space after seeing them. “White space” is strong enough to strengthen feelings.

Untitled 

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

The pairing of objects and the use of the double is employed frequently in his work as well.

The floor length double mirrors can be understood as a double portrait of the artist and his lover, “this device intimates a personal relationship between the objects themselves.”

This piece work makes me think about that mirror could be a perfect form of “white space”, because mirror seems to apply a sense of “uncertainty”, which means “possibility” and “unlimiting”. Despite the original idea of putting two mirrors together and creating personal relationship between them, I think about an installation that strongly engages the audience in completing the work. No matter who stands in front of the mirrors, there is always a reflection appears in the mirrors. If a couple stands in front of the mirrors, their appearance and existence will be reflected separately in the two mirrors, which may help people see the personal relationship between them, and therefore they may get the concept more easily and complete the conceptual work naturally.

Also, if there is just one person facing the two mirrors, standing in the space between, what he sees will be he himself was separated into two parts, it’s like a dissociation of personality. This inspired me that white space is also a space of lots possibility. It may be created with simply objects ( transparent things?) to invoke imaginations.

In this work, a single blue-hued mirror is encountered, returning the viewer’s gaze. As a solitary object, its position opposite the entrance feels direct and almost confrontational.

Instead of the concept included in this work, the effect created using white space around the subject is quite impressive. It makes me realise that white is the perfect choice when you want to strengthen and add focus on something. This can be a use of “white space”.

The blue-hued mirror and white space around works really well. I think it’s like a film in reality, with the reflection with people and things going by and moving around. The blue hue makes it like an old film, implying sense of calm, depression, and to me, horror to it.

‘Another Misspent Portrait of Etienne de Silhouette‘ (1999 – 2004) by Christian Capurro

“Christian Capurro asked anonymous people to erase a page from a 246-page issue of Vogue Hommes magazine from 1986. They were also asked to write in pencil on their erased page both the time it took them to do this and whatever monetary value they currently received at work for their time, translated into an hourly rate or rates. The erasing took 5 years to complete and involved over 250 people.”

As an interactive project, I think it worked effectively and had an impact on people who took part in. It was the audience who erased and marked ages, so it’s easy to express the idea of time spending.

Because it is more like interactive art, it makes me think that my project could also be an interact  project including lots of people and work together to create a “white space” or to get the sense of “white space”. It doesn’t have to be too complicated, but could be conceptual and the point is include people’s actions and experience.

Invisible: Art about the Unseen

This piece of work explores the role that unseen and invisible elements can play in art. Through using "unseen colours" as materials abstractly, the artist tried to the sense of "brainwaves, energy, light and worries collecting and releasing". 

This piece of work adds another definition of “white space”, which is “empty”. This makes me realise that white space is a quite abstract thing, it could be nothing but anything. In this work, I think the artist didn’t limit the audience’s imagination of “empty”, but held an open mind on different understanding of it. Whatever you think “empty” is, it’s all up to you. So instead of using “white space” as an element in this work, this work itself is a “white space” for free thinking.

Yves Klein

“Le Vide”

In January 1961, Yves Klein painted a emptied storeroom white in Krefeld's Museum Haus Lange. This was a small, windowless transit room accessible via two doors in the basement exhibition area. In his 1961 Krefeld exhibition Yves Klein: Monochrome und Feuer (Monochrome and Fire) it became a zone of “immaterial pictural sensibility.” The atmosphere of the room is effectively a condition of spiritual vacuum (“Le Vide”). The intention was that visitors should be sensitized and made open to the exhibited art works in this empty space.

I think this empty storeroom has explained one of the meaning of white space straightforward, which is a space for people to stop and think. I think it creates a condition of “spiritual vacuum”, which allowed people to clear anything in their brain and focus on the exhibited art works they’ve seen, being completely isolated with the noisy world outside.

Sadly, the appearance of the room had suffered particularly from the fact that the floor had become very dirty. For preserving the space from getting dirty, visitors have to wear felt overshoes if they want to look at the room. Visitors are also required to go into the room one at a time, and not in groups. I think this measure actually made the meaning of the room more effective, as it provides a chance for the audience to step in this spiritual vacuum and think alone.

This work makes me think of Sherlock’s mind palace. The first step of getting into his mind palace is letting people go away and leaving him alone.