Project 2: Place
ANALYSIS
Extending itself from Minimal Art and Process Art, Place Art focuses more specifically on the use of a space or some kind of connection to that space or place. Place art encompasses the construction or reconstruction of real or imagined spaces, places in time or moments in space, and site specific places and spaces that explore the relationship between a body of work and its surrounding space or environment as well as how a body of work utilizes its given space or place. In short, just a process art relates to more specifically to action but has various forms, place art, although first calling to mind a type of environment in which a work exists, can take on many forms as well. Place Art to artists like Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy place art is site-specific as it involves the use of the land as the body of work and reconstructing the land in some way by altering its shape. Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) and Goldsworthy’s Carefully Broken Pebbles Scratched White with Another Stone (1985) both utlize the existing elements within the space and manipulate into visually aesthetic yet organic forms which then remain in space only to be surrendered to the hands of nature. Yet Place Art to artists like Thomas Demand and Jenny Holzer takes on a completely different form using elements of modern technology such as digital photography and led lighting or projection. Demand’s work, Tunnel (1999) and Holzer’s Ribs (2010) as they explore places in time and recorded events whether they are accessed through de-classified government documents or widely-circulated news articles or events. With these places in time, Demand and Holzer reconstruct these places into kind of imagined or invented spaces.
Robert Smithson’s site-specific Spiral Jetty (1970) is 1,500ft long coiled structure made from approximately 6,650 tons of local basalt rock extending into the Great Lake of Utah. This work interacts with nature and its environment as it employs the material of the land to create the work. Smithson was interested in cycles of nature and the workings of the environment and understood the ephemerality of his work as it was placed in the hands of nature within a fluctuating environment of rising and falling water levels. Embracing the idea of entropy, which relates to disorder and disintegration, Smithson took into account the effects of that the environment would have on his work as well as the accessibility of his work especially with it being within a body of water that constantly changes in levels. He then employed photography, film, and text to give audience a lasting look into his work as well as to experience the environment and the space that is not so easily accessible.
Like Robert Smithson, the place art of Andy Goldsworthy takes on a site-specific approach as he utilizes the nearby elements of nature and the land as material to construct elaborately designed organic forms. In his works such as Carefully Broken Pebbles Scratched White with Another Stone (1985), Goldsworthy explores the site, analyzing the various colors, shapes, and materials around him and then collects them. With no other adhesive or cutting tools except the given natural material around him, he then constructs his collected items into patterns. Goldsworthy will often use his feet, hands, teeth, and even saliva to manipulate the appearance of the natural material and change its form. Also like Smithson, Goldsworthy also realizes the ephemerality and limited accessibility of his work as it remains in its place only to be overcome by the cycles of nature. Thus, Goldsworthy documents his work by photographing his work and making them into visually appealing and eye-catching photographs.
Demand’s video documentation of his work Tunnel (1999), is taken from the perspective of a moving car that is racing through a tunnel. On the outside, it appears to be just a tunnel that something is travelling through yet after looking further into the work and the background of the place, the viewer finds out that it is a cardboard and paper replica of the same tunnel that Princess Diana had died in a car accident in 1996. As a place-orientated artist, Thomas Demand reconstructs places with the intent to recreate an experience of these places that allows Demand and his viewers to connect to the work and those places. Using banal and commonplace items such as cardboard and paper, Demand creates these often life-size models and exact replicas of real places that may seem neutral and common but have had emotionally charged and significant events occur in them. Unlike Robert Smithson and Andy Goldsworthy, Demand’s recreated illusion places are based on real places that Demand oftentimes, may not have access to. Rather, he utilizes photographs as a medium of access into those places and he recreates these places and then photographs them to then give his audience access to these places as well in the same manner he obtains his access.
In her work, Ribs (2010), Jenny Holzer creates an LED display that denotes a series of incidents and government instated actions as well as testimonies of American soldiers employed at Guantanamo Bay. She uses a series of “X”s in place of the redactions which again, create still an air of mystery yet serve as a marker, or rather, representation of the limited transparency of government institutions and its workings. Like Thomas Demand, Robert Smithson, and Andy Goldsworthy, Holzer’s work is accessible to her audience because gives her audience access into the inner workings of the government and creates transparency of the government by using declassified files now available to the public. Holzer furthers the accessibility of her work as she puts them into a more visual context whether she silkscreens bodies of text onto canvas, green backgrounds, or blackened backgrounds or creates bright and eye catching LED displays. She draws attention to the words in documents, stories, or personal writings by enhancing their visual forms and aesthetic.
To me, place art is like process art in that it is not limited to one central theme or concrete place. It can be real or imagined and made simple or elaborate. When I examine place and space, I am looking primarily at what is involved with the work. Are there elements of nature being used in a natural setting? How is the land or space being used or how does it contribute to the overall goal of the work? When I relate the ideas of place to my own work, I align more so with Thomas Demand and his recreated spaces and his illusionistic work. My own work takes on a kind of optical illusions using mirrors and their reflections to create multiple repeated images. Like Demand and how he makes public his private works through digital photographs, my work creates an illusion of space, or in this case, multiple spaces so as to place my audience into an imagined space which is private but placed into a public setting.
|