Site Specificity or lack there of

In the reading, Miwon Kwon attempts to follow site specific art and its patterns throughout the 20th century. As he progresses in his analysis, Kwon develops his own opinion of the slowly changing definition of what site specific art is. He reveals the origins of this style, where the piece of art was initially “made to suit the place in which it was installed. To remove the work is to destroy the work” (12). The exhibition space was the primary point in the artwork itself, and the spaces were modeled around the art piece to act as framing devices. For example, Kwon talks about how walls had cut outs taken from them, or even artwork exceeding the boundaries of the site or gallery such as a piece literally going out the window. Another example he brought up was Ukeles’s Maintenance Art, which consisted of the artist herself, washing the floor of a plaza, literally on her hands and knees. Kwon depicts this as another branch of site specific art that conveys the same continuing definition of the “physical condition of a specific location receding as the primary element in the conception of a site” (19).

Unfortunately for Kwon, the aesthetic of site specific art starts to disappear later in the century. It no longer seeks to be a noun, but it becomes a process. Specifically, it is now “concerned with integrating art more directly into the realm of the social” (24). It’s now in tune with a broader range of areas and is more sharply attuned to popular topics of the time period including fashion, music, television, etc. Unlike before, the site, which was the primary focus of the art is not defined as a precondition anymore. The artwork can now be made for any variety of places, and the site is not necessarily specific. Kwon uses Mark Dion’s On Tropical Nature as an example. Here, there were multiple sites that were used to create the final version for the project. Instead of creating the artwork at the site, however, Dion collected specimens from the desired site, and shipped them to an alternative site in order to arrange and frame the objects in his own desired way. This goes against the originality of site specific work, as well as the definition that Kwon agrees with.

As the reading progresses, Kwon reveals how site specific art is constantly being fragmenting from the aspects that once made it unique and individualized in the first place. Now, almost anything can be considered site-specific, and these pieces of artwork can even be mobile replications. By changing the definitions and continually making exceptions, Kwon believes that there isn’t really a category of site specific art anymore. Fabrications of site specific works are becoming more common and artists don’t put enough time into one specific project at a time. Art is not difficult to collect and impossible to produce anymore like it once used to be. There is no authenticity, and artists now want it to be a nomadic practice so that the process of producing such art can go by much faster. I agree with Kwon in that what was once an important aspect behind a unique form of art, is now a watered down set of guidelines that don’t even need to be followed to be considered site specific art. It should still consider the original principles of authenticity, and the important relationship to the surroundings and environment that frame and shape the artwork in that unique way that cannot be replicated.

On page 42, Kwon talks about site specificity as long as the artist is present and can direct or supervise (re)production. Is this a definition that he agrees with? Or is it one of the many changing definitions that he disagrees with?

What are the present set of rules or boundaries that categorize site specific art? Has it changed since the late 1990s? Have they gotten more lenient still?