Site Specific Art

Site-Specific Art charts the development of an experimental art form in an experimental way. Nick Kaye traces the fascinating historical antecedents of today's installation and performance art, while also assembling a unique documentation of contemporary practice around the world. The book is divided into individual analyses of the themes of space, materials, site, and frames. These are interspersed by specially commissioned documentary artwork from some of the world's foremost practitioners and artists working today. This interweaving of critique and creativity has never been achieved on this scale before. Site-Specific Art investigates the relationship of architectural theory to an understanding of contemporary site related art and performance, and rigorously questions how such works can be documented. The artistic processes involved are demonstrated through entirely new primary articles from: * Meredith Monk * Station House Opera * Brith Gof * Forced Entertainment. This volume is an astonishing contribution to debates around experimental cross-arts practice.

A critical history of site-specific art since the late 1960s. Site-specific art emerged in the late 1960s in reaction to the growing commodification of art and the prevailing ideals of art's autonomy and universality. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as site-specific art intersected with land art, process art, performance art, conceptual art, installation art, institutional critique, community-based art, and public art, its creators insisted on the inseparability of the work and its context. In recent years, however, the presumption of unrepeatability and immobility encapsulated in Richard Serra's famous dictum "to remove the work is to destroy the work" is being challenged by new models of site specificity and changes in institutional and market forces. One Place after Another offers a critical history of site-specific art since the late 1960s and a theoretical framework for examining the rhetoric of aesthetic vanguardism and political progressivism associated with its many permutations. Informed by urban theory, postmodernist criticism in art and architecture, and debates concerning identity politics and the public sphere, the book addresses the siting of art as more than an artistic problem. It examines site specificity as a complex cipher of the unstable relationship between location and identity in the era of late capitalism. The book addresses the work of, among others, John Ahearn, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Donald Judd, Renee Green, Suzanne Lacy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Richard Serra, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Fred Wilson.

" Art & Place is an extraordinary collection of site–specific art in the Americas. Featuring hundreds of powerful art works in 60 cities – from Albuquerque to Boston and Baja to Rio de Janeiro – the book is both an informative guide and a virtual bucket list of outstanding art destinations. Conceived and developed by Phaidon editors, Art & Place covers carving, painting, murals, frescos, earthworks, land art, and more. Each of the works has a dedicated entry pairing gorgeous, large‐format images with in‐depth descriptions. Maps pinpoint the sites’ locations while specially commissioned plans reveal some of the more complex layouts. The book is organized geographically, offering fresh juxtapositions among familiar art works, such as Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, alongside lesser-known revelations, such as Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea in Brazil. Whether in the mountains, at the heart of a city, or on a remote island, the works in Art & Place are all inextricably linked with their environment. This is art to experience in an immersive way, presented together in a single book for the first time. "

Site-specific installations are created for specific locations and are usually intended as temporary artworks. The Perpetuation of Site-Specific Installation Artworks in Museums: Staging Contemporary Art shows that these artworks consist of more than a singular manifestation and that their lifespan is often extended. In this book, Tatja Scholte offers an in-depth account of the artistic production of the last forty years. With a wealth of case studies the author illuminates the diversity of site-specific art in both form and content, as well as in the conservation strategies applied. A conceptual framework is provided for scholars and museum professionals to better understand how site-specific installations gain new meanings during successive stages of their biographies and may become agents for change in professional routines.

Site-specific art is mushrooming across the world. This book contains an illustrated exploration of international site-specific artworks.

When we think of installation art we imagine enormous, perhaps bewildering, multi-media environments. In this book, Mark Rosenthal offers an historical interpretation and concise critical analyses that should help deepen readers' appreciation of this often-confusing medium.

Installation art has become mainstream in artistic practices. However, acquiring and displaying such artworks means that curators and conservators are challenged to deal with obsolete technologies, ephemeral materials, and other issues concerning care and management of these artworks. By analyzing three in-depth case studies, the author sheds new light on the key concepts of traditional conservation--authenticity, artist's intention, and the notion of ownership--while exploring how these concepts apply in contemporary art conservation.