Kristin Seymour
Analysis Writing: Place
Artworks that revolve around place and space can vary greatly in meaning, placement, practice and aesthetics. Many of the artists addressing place that I have researched are earthwork artists, basing their works in and on naturally occurring places, but earthworks are not the only place-oriented artworks. When thinking about place related artworks I generalize these works into three categories: Site responsive/specific, Creation of place, and reaction or recreation of a place, yet displaced from its natural environment into a new location. Many artists analyze place related art in many different ways and as I will elaborate more on within this essay, single artists make works that fall into each category.
The first segment of “place” art is site-responsive and site-specific works. I group these two categories together into one because they are so similar and often hard to distinguish between. Site-specific works are those that are created with a specific place and setting in mind. The work is made for that place with the intention for it to be moved from a studio setting into the location. Site-responsive works are those, which are made within the place using resources mainly found within the location of origin and finally the form is based on an idea and a notion happened upon within the place. These works are not made within a studio and then brought to a site, but rather made by responding to the site while in it. Andy Goldsworthy’s egg like structures of rocks, wood and other natural resources are site-specific works. Cairn 1997in Victoria, Australia is an example of one of these works. I refer to his egg shaped sculptures as site-specific rather than responsive because he makes many of these sculptures. Although most resources are found on location and it is made on location, the theories and shape behind the final piece are from elsewhere. He did not choose the egg form due to the location; the egg form was repeated over and over again. In contrast, Goldsworthy’s piece where he used found chalk from the location and found Autumn colored leaves to trace the lines of the roots coming from a large tree, is classified as site-responsive. He used materials from the site, as well as leaving the piece at the location, but most importantly he used existing forms as the centerpiece. He did not enter the space with a plan to trace tree roots with chalk, he happened upon the chalk and the tree roots and decided to create the work. Andy Goldsworthy in those pieces was responding to the natural habitat and found objects. Another characteristic of site-responsive works is how we view them. Often times these works are in uninhabited areas and or disappear over time. Therefore photographs are how viewers access these pieces. Site-specific works are usually built in places where viewers can access and visit. These places are at museums, or sculpture gardens. In the case of Nancy Holt, her Sun Tunnels, were site responsive because of their placement in relation to the sun, eclipses and solar happenings. Her tunnels are not able to be placed anywhere and work properly as an experience. The location is key to the experience and the movement of the sun and the stars make this piece directly respond to it. Site-specific and Site-responsive art works rely heavily on the place and space it is placed and created in.
The next category of place-oriented work is the creation of place/space. I define this as work that creates a new space for the viewer. These works will take the viewer away from the real world and enter into a world fabricated by the artist. These works can have a relation to their true location or not. Gordon Mata Clark shot out the windows of a building in New York City. This deconstruction of the space, recreated the building into a new place. Clark’s work still related to the original location and space but what he did to the building changed the place’s aesthetics, contextual meaning and more. Ann Hamilton’s sewing factory piece recreated the space into a version of its original form. She hosted her piece in an abandoned factory that used house a textile company. By hanging sheets and projecting on to them she created a space for viewers to enter and be surrounded by. This piece much like Gordon Matta Clark’s related to the location in a direct way. In contrast, Maya Lin’s Wave Field sculptures are not as related to the location as Clark’s and Hamilton’s. Lin created her sculptures by bringing in dirt to mound up and form the waves of the sculpture. She explained how when you sit in the crevice of the wave, the viewer is surrounded by the wave. This creates a whole new place separate from the sculptures location. The rolling grass waves could theoretically be placed anywhere grassy and open. The creation and reformation of an existing space is a very unique form of place-oriented art.
The final category I have divided place-oriented art into is the recreation of place not within a natural setting. These art works are those with natural subject matter that has been transformed into an object suitable for a gallery setting. Works such as these may not seem like typical place-oriented artworks but due to their subject matter and/or materials, they are indeed in this category. Andy Goldsworthy’s Roof, 2005 is a piece made from natural wooden logs and created in a natural form much like those of dams and works he has created in the past. These forms are a reaction and recreation of the natural forms of beaver dams that Goldsworthy has studied. He often times would create similar forms within a landscape near where a real dam would be. But for this exhibition he made the “roofs” inside the gallery. He recreated a place within a new context. Outside the structures would seem more normal and blend in with the landscape, but inside the gallery they are out of place and clearly not within their natural settings. The organic forms do not blend well with the white walled gallery space. They stand out and clearly state that they are intruding. Maya Lin’s topography works are based on real scientific data and schematic landscapes. She then recreated these places to scale with metal and wooden materials. These pieces form the start are intended for a gallery setting. These pieces are very finished and pedestal worthy. The works though are direct reactions to a real location and because of that simple fact, they are still classified as place-oriented artworks.
Art works with a relation to place seems like a very broad category to fit into. Many only think of earthworks as place-oriented artworks, but there are many other types of work that fit into the category as well. My three categories are generalizations that I think about when classifying works related to place.
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