Site Specificity – A Permeable Art

Miwon Kwon in “Genealogy of Site Specificity” and “Unhinging of Site Specificity” provides a thorough understanding of how art is adaptive to both time and place and the context in which a specific art is erected. I especially enjoyed how site specific art was grounded to the site, location, city, space being occupied and how ultimately there is no escape from whatever meaning is provided by the setting. Of further interest is Kwon’s description in how site specific art should not only be aesthetically enjoyed, but it should also be a sensory experience of the “here and now” (267).

I have to agree with most of the post and say I enjoyed the idea behind this type of art for more than one reason. First, I like how site specific art is not meant to be relocated and the theory that to “remove the work is to destroy the work” (268) because it further privileges this idea of site being equally as important as what is being portrayed. Second, I also enjoyed the role that artist now play in site specific art – a role that goes beyond the originator of an artwork to now include an actor, element, participant role in the artwork itself like demonstrated by Ukeles when washing the entry plaza and steps of a museum. Third, I liked the arguments made by site specific art – arguments that ranged from gender bias and social conditions of a city to cultural debate and political appeals.

Another area of interest is that of site specific art taking three different forms that define each other in such a way where they don’t contradict each other – “the three paradigms of site specificity I have schematized here – phenomenological, social/institutional, and discursive – although presented somewhat chronologically, art not stages in a neat linear trajectory of historical development” (277).

Lastly, I would’ve liked more clarification with the following points; first, why didn’t site specific artist just call this “movement” something more around the lines of “functional site” since that is what in essence is being conveyed by this art like suggested by James Meyer? Second, why would there be a return to authenticity and authorship when recreating an artwork somewhere else aside from the “original site” if the new site calls for a new way to interpret the artwork even if it resembles or recreates a past artwork? Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of “site specific art” if a new site is being used?