How did other galleries begin?

"White Cube was set up by Jay Jopling in 1993 as a project room for contemporary art. Although it was one of the smallest exhibition spaces in Europe, it was arguably one of most influential commercial galleries of the past decade. Situated on the second floor of 44 Duke Street, St James’s, one of London’s most traditional art dealing streets, White Cube, Duke Street was, literally, a simple white cube, a room within a room, designed by the architect Claudio Silvestrin.

The central concern when establishing the programme was to create an intimate space in which an artist could present a single important work of art or a coherent body of work within a focused environment, an idea that in some way, stemmed from the memorable experience of Walter de Maria’s ‘Earth Room’ in New York. The programme was singular among commercial galleries in that an artist was invited to exhibit only once. Since its inception, the gallery mounted exhibitions of work by many leading international and British artists including Franz Ackermann, Miroslaw Balka, Chuck Close, Tracey Emin, Katharina Fritsch, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Ellsworth Kelly, Julie Mehretu, Doris Salcedo, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Luc Tuymans and Jeff Wall. White Cube, Duke Street closed in 2002."