Site-Specific Installation aims to change
the way people view art. It begins by using the site as its starting point. Should
the work be moved it no longer resonate with the same meaning.
By utilizing space outside of the cultural,
architectural or functionality norm it draws the viewer into a debate about how
we look at art. The questions that arise are as important as the finished
piece. In fact it could be argued this is the whole point for many of these
works. By utilizing the new, forgotten or previously ignored spaces the viewer
has to consider the ‘boundaries of art’ and what this means to the present day
viewer.
By drawing the viewer’s eye into an area
perhaps not considered before it is impossible for them to consider the same space with
the preconceived canons as set out by previous periods. This tool now engages
the space and audience in a new dialogue about physical borders imagined or
otherwise.
Duchamps Mile of String in 1942 shows this
by making it physically impossible for the viewer to get close to works of art he
considered to be old fashioned. By using this technique not only is it
physically impossible to see the last canons he also draws the eye to areas
perhaps not considered before within the architectural context and by doing so
establishes and shows how the previous canon is antique- like something
covered in spider webs -Impenetrable and lost in time.
Daniel Burens work Within and Beyond the
Frame, 1973, takes the viewers eye so far out of what was once considered the
picture frame (at least within the gallery confines) and asks the viewer to
consider the inside and outside world and how art relates to it in the present day. With
its movement above the bustling streets its noise may not be heard or even noticed
or considered to be art, but it is there nonetheless. The question is being asked from both within
and out of the gallery space. It shows
that art does not have borders.
Most Site-Specific Installation aims to
attack. Making itself immovable form site to sight it ceases to exist on
completion of the show.It reflects the confined views of a canon by trying to
be canon-less. It cannot be collected,
or bought. It cannot co-exist with the
bourgeois notions of what art is. . It often attacks the institution it is
housed in and the audience that views it. It creates an argument against a past
it is no longer reaching behind to reference.
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