for art to serve social imagination, it has to be organised in ways that allow time for it to be absorbed and adapted, so that it becomes an act of co-creation rather than just an act of consumption or an enjoyable way to pass the evening.15 If it is only an object for the passing gaze, then it is, perhaps, bound to fail. Experiences that are

In 1909, Boston’s Museum of Fine Art moved into a new Beaux Arts building that displayed only the most significant artworks, with lesser ones stored in the basement and accessible only to scholars. The galleries were well-lit and generously sized. While paintings were still stacked on top of one another in symmetrical arrangements, the MFA limited

Today, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is widely credited with institutionalizing the approach in the 1930s. But the evolution of the white cube goes back much further, with MoMA representing the culmination of a long stretch of experimentation and debate by museum directors and curators spanning continents and centuries.