Cristina Garrido. The White Cube is Never Empty
EUROPALIA ESPAÑA
Programmed at MACS, The White Cube is Never Empty is the first solo show in a Belgian museum by Spanish artist Cristina Garrido. Spanning the past decade of her practice, it includes a new site-specific installation that responds directly to the Museum’s distinctive architecture and exhibition history.
Garrido’s multidisciplinary work examines how art is framed – culturally, digitally, and institutionally. Recurring themes in her practice include the relationship between art and cultural narratives, the impact of technology, and the role of viewer subjectivity. The exhibition offers a critical lens on the evolving dynamics of the contemporary art world. It invites viewers to consider how identity and context shape artistic production and reception. Garrido probes the complex interplay between artists, their cultural backgrounds, and the systems that mediate visibility and value – interrogating how meaning is constructed within the global art ecosystem. Her work also explores the influence of digital culture, particularly how social media alters the circulation, interpretation, and authorship of art.
Her new installation expands these inquiries by engaging with the Museum’s architecture, its curatorial history, and the collective memory of its visitors. Drawing on her research into anamorphosis – a visual technique that distorts images based on the viewer’s perspective – Garrido incorporates archival photographs from past exhibitions to create optical illusions that reintroduce ghosts of earlier artworks into the space. This immersive work deepens her exploration of memory, time, and authorship, while reflecting on the Museum’s evolving role in shaping art history.
