Location specific
Site-specific was often used as an addition to artistic work in the last third of the 20th century.
term
The term was adopted from the English "site-specific" into German. Situs, which is contained in site-specific, means the place, the location. It is used especially in the phrase in situ and this in two fields of meaning: first in archeology , then in medicine . In both cases a thing is related to a larger whole; for example a column in relation to the excavation site or an organ in relation to the entire organism in which the organ is correctly positioned, or, for example, reversed ( situs inversus ).
Context art
The phenomenon that something is positioned and thus refers to a larger whole also occurs in the context of art. In the Christian culture, for example, one should remember the eastward orientation of the churches. From this point of view, the church space is a place that aligns the visitor and his attention in such a way that his position in relation to the light becomes clear to him, that he is referred to his position in the cosmic structure.
In the last few centuries this referential nature of the work of art has faded into the background because a closed, compact work concept has prevailed - developed, for example, on the models of panel painting and sculpture. The closed character of the work, its demarcation from another, was considered a sign of art. Ortega y Gasset touched on the topic of the border as a constitutive element for the work of art in his essay Meditation on the Frame (Meditación del marco 1921). The frame marks the delimitation of the picture from everyday space, just as the pedestal does for the sculpture.
After all, the spaces for art - museums, concert halls, opera houses - are symbols of this isolation from everyday life. They are places for attention to gather; Protected spaces in which the perception can fully engage with one thing (namely the work of art), in which the perception is freed from other tasks. The concentrated attention to one thing needs this protected zone.
Against this foil of the closed, compact work of art, two strong forces of creativity in the 20th century become visible. They break through various art forms and are both central elements for the site-specific art forms:
- The demolition or at least the theming of the border
- The anchoring of the work in space and / or time
This has become programmatic with the Minimal Artists and here, after Douglas Crimp, site specificity seems to be introduced into contemporary art. In this text, Crimp analyzes, among other things, an early work by Richard Serra , which answers our question about the limits of the work in a very vivid way: Splashing, as the work is titled, was part of an exhibition organized by Robert Morris in 1968 in an old department store, which the Leo Castelli Gallery used as a warehouse. Along an edge where the floor and wall meet, Serra had thrown molten lead, so that it spread irregularly in the edge, on the wall and floor and solidified. The many splashes made the boundary between work and non-work diffuse. The work was glued to the outside. This place is still in the art sanctuary (gallery). Later, when the works come out into the public space, the immovability of the work, which appears harmless in the gallery, takes on a political dimension. The sculptures created for certain places can only work and exist there. The power that skillfully positioned works can develop becomes clear in the arguments surrounding many of the classics of Serra's oeuvre (e.g. Terminal, Bochum 1977 / Tilted Arc, Federal Plaza New York 1981–85). The public discussions triggered by the vivid provocations reveal with clear analyzes - such as those carried out by Crimp, for example - the conflicts of interest and political power struggles in these very places. Several times, including with Tilted Arc, the work finally had to give way, and since it can no longer simply be set up elsewhere, this also meant that the work had to be destroyed: To remove Tilted Arc, therefore, is to destroy it. (Serra in Public Hearing on the sculpture on March 6, 1985 in New York)
Richard Serra wasn't the only one who felt the urge to leave the art rooms. Representative are important representatives: Robert Morris, Michael Heizer , Ian Hamilton Finlay and Sue Finlay , Walter de Maria , Richard Long , Robert Smithson , James Turrell . Once released from the sanctuary of art, the complexity of the sites, the places that the artists select and want to react to, now becomes apparent: one pays particular attention to geological structures (Heizer), the other light phenomena (Turell) and a third (de Maria) meteorological elements. In all of these groups of works, site-specific reactions to landscapes are reflected. The use of nature by people is also discussed on site.
A very subtle approach to the landscape from the field of music must also be mentioned: the composition Princess of the Stars (1981) by the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer . It is set on a lake in Ontario at sunrise. The audience sits on the shore of the lake and hears the beginning of the story, which is told from a canoe. The composition is based on the schedule of the actual awakening of nature. Singers scattered around the lake simulate bird calls just before they join the opera themselves. The composition refers to what is already there, it exists with what is given, art and nature are not mutually exclusive. This location- and time-specific work has had a decisive influence on the wandering radio play "Bürgerliche Dämmerung" by Walter Siegfried.
The term site-specific is not limited to landscapes. Norbert Radermacher's sculptures can be found in Marseille, Hamburg, Cologne, Paris, Berlin - not in museums and galleries, but in very unexpected places in urban areas 5). Often you don't even notice them at first. But then, once you have discovered them - maybe a child has drawn your attention to them, they are very clearly memorized. And not as a single object, but as an ensemble of what is found and what is inserted. A small concrete cake on the side of the road suddenly reveals the madness of an urban concrete structure. Of course, this only works if these objects are implanted into the cityscape with surgical precision; otherwise they sink into the general overgrowth.
Important German artists of site-specific interventions are Eberhard Bosslet and Christian Hasucha , who also made important theoretical contributions on the topic:
- "If profane objects are placed unusually in an environment remote from the art industry, for example in the street area of a large city, they no longer evoke the character of the image and can instead refer to the structural relationships of their environment."
- "... only when the manifestations of the art object come into relation with those of the environment, for example by expanding existing compositions or by accentuating what is already there, does the dialogue with the environment become recognizable, the type of placement becomes transparent."
literature
- Douglas Crimp: Redifining Site Specifity. In: Rosalind Krauss (Ed.): Richard Serra / Sculpture. Museum of Modern Art, New York 1986.
- R. Murray Schafer: The Tuning of the World. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto 1977, ISBN 0771079656 .