Introducing: Site specific art

Site specific art

In the latter part of the 20th century, some artists began to leave the established institutions to re-site their art works in public spaces. Although few things unite these artists in terms of similarity of works, most share a desire to explore the relationship of the idea of public space and local interaction.

Some of these artists have chosen, for different reasons, to interact directly with the locality - its history, topography and discourses, by siting their work in public or formerly public places. In this paper I will discuss how artists have responded to the particular circumstances in Europe from the early 1990s to the present.

Gillian McIver

Definition, history, what it is?

• this kind of art has context and situation behind it. It has a relation to the place where it is situated and also it motivates a viewer to have some relation to that place.
• “anti-museum, anti-gallery”
• in eastern Europe – “against of totalism regime in galleries and institutions”
• in 90ties – looking for new space for art
• important is genius loci of the place, aura, special feeling
• art works challenge, by drawing public attention to, the roots of current disuse - bringing up notions of access, property, and questioning social and economic structures
• the history of site-responsive art is complex and is linked to the development of installation art, land art and the evolution of the idea of "public art"
• aatmospheric, culturally-loaded spaces where traces of “what went before” and “what is happening now”
• engage with the problem of the division between “art” and “everyday life” in modern bourgeois society