Jim Biddulph: Physical>Non>Nomadic>The shifting role of site in contemporary art practice
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Transcript of Jim Biddulph: Physical>Non>Nomadic>The shifting role of site in contemporary art practice
PhysicalNonNomadicThe shifting role of site in contemporary art practice
Jim Biddulph
1
PhysicalNonNomadicThe shifting role of site in contemporary art
practice
Jim Biddulph MA Art and Media Practice 2007/8
Thinking Practices
2AMP7H1
Word Count: 3869
PhysicalNonNomadicThe shifting role of site in contemporary art practice
Jim Biddulph
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PhysicalNonNomadicThe shifting role of site in contemporary art practice “The specificity of site-orientated works mean that they are conceived for, dependant upon and inseparable from their location.”i Written as a revolt against the removal of his publicly funded and
situated sculpture Tilted Arc (1981)[1], Richard Serra’s quote highlights
a key point in the history of site-specific art. It has faced much
contention since and in many respects has been the catalyst for a
number of more contemporary artists’ antithetical approach to such
declarations, which I will consider throughout this thesis. However,
Serra’s stance represents a shared concern for many artists from the
1960’s onwards. They follow in the genealogy of numerous site
orientated works legitimised by expectations passed on throughout
history; namely a phenomological encounter with a work at the
specific site of it’s creation and permanent, fixed home. The Great
Pyramid of Giza in Egypt[2], Michelangelo’s ceiling paintings of the
Sistine chapel in Rome[3], the ancient stone formations of Stone Henge
located in Wiltshire[4]; all were made for and have remained at a
specific site. Shrouded in mystery and timelessness they represent
humankind’s fascination with the monumental. In order to fully
experience such monuments the viewer must travel to the site and
encounter it in real-time and space. This is also true of much work
being produced in site-specific practices, but particularly throughout
the 1960-80’s, of which Serra’s is a prime example. This tendency
toward the monumental meant many artists- a number of whom I shall
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examine- sought to objectify site through various forms of sculpture. It
is this mode of engagement with site that two of the most noted
writers on Site-specificity, James Meyer and Miwon Kwon, have aptly
coined as the Literal site.ii Such a site involves a singular location the
physicalities and limitations of which shape the final outcome of the
work.iii However, if we fast-forward to the late 1980’s and the 1990’s
onwards it appears that the art world’s expectations and
interpretations of site have shifted considerably. Kwon feels that more
recently site-specific practice includes many additional formulations
including Context-specific, Debate specific, audience-specific,
Community-specific and project-based.iv An example of an early
alternative to the Literal site is Christian Philipp Müller’s 1986 ‘piece’
The Heart of the Periphery, where the artist led a ‘garden tour’ for a
small audience of tourists in Düsseldorf. The excursion, advertised as
a tour of “the garden of a Great Duke,”v became a disjointed journey
shared by the artist and audience alike. Like nomads they travelled
from one site to the next site, each one defying all expectations and
insights offered by the artist; as opposed to centring toward the
garden’s famous gazebo, the group converged upon a local bus stop.
The site has become a series of sites, no longer appropriated by the
singular place. There is no extraordinary entity at the centre of
interpretation and both artist and viewer (and in some cases the work)
must all engage in travel and movement in order to experience the
work in full. This is one of many examples that highlight the erosion
of the physical site, a selection of which I shall consider in this essay.
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The question is; how has this dichotomy of our expectations of site-
specific art occurred? How has the theme of the nomad come to
prominence, and how has this changed our expectations and
ultimately, what does site-specificity entail in contemporary art
practice?
In order to answer these questions it is important to examine
the origins of Site-specific practice in more detail. I would like to pay
particular attention to artists who engaged with the particularly
physical aspects of the Literal site. In this I refer to the ‘movements’ (a
term that conveniently encapsulates a number of artists many of
whom share in similar tendencies and concerns throughout their
practice, but who may have never classified themselves as part of any
group or movement) arising towards the end of modernism’s
hegemony of the art world in the 1960 and 1970’s. Movements such
as Land Art or Environmental Art as well as various forms of
conceptual practice, for whom the term site-specific became
integrated within their practice. For instance, in America in the late
1960’s came the emergence of exhibitions such as Earthworks at
Dwan Gallery, New York, in 1968 and Earth at Cornell University, New
York, in the following year. The former was organised by the American
artist Robert Smithson and included work by him and 13 other artists
who, as the exhibitions title suggests, sought to work directly with the
Earth as a raw material.vi Earth represented a more refined exhibition
involving only 6 artists including Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim and the
English artist, Richard Long. Smithson would also later work with and
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exhibit alongside Michael Heizer and Nancy Holt, two fellow American
artists who shared an affinity for site-specificity. Collectively the works
of these artists highlight some of the fundamental characteristics of
site-specific art during this period. Whether through negation of the
earth by digging and cutting (Heizer/Oppenheim)[5&6]; sculpting new
formations on site with the materials found there (Smithson)[7];
marking a presence (Long/Heizer)[8&9], or engaging with the
landscapes relationship with celestial objects or phenomena (Holt)[10]
all retain the site as the central defining stipulator for their work. The
exhibition of such work broke from convention as the artists took
themselves and the work outside, and often miles away, from any
gallery environment, frequently only offering photographic
documentation of the work as evidence. This is a significant point,
particularly when considering the potential viewer of the work. For
most of the works made by these artists and numerous others during
the period were dictated by a need for wilderness or vast expanses of
space. Therefore the viewer is faced with the phenomological
challenge; in order to fully experience the work they must find and
then get to the site at which it is located. In many cases this is a
perilous and demanding upheaval. Writer Charles Darwen was set the
challenge by Art Review magazine in 2007. During the research trip he
went in search of, amongst others, Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970)[7] of
which he exclaimed “ you take your life into your own hands (in)
getting to,”vii and Heizer’s Double Negative (1969-70)[5]. Indeed he
described both excursions in treacherous terms. In the case of Double
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Negative, he found discomfort; “…to get to it you drive to the half-
horse town of Overton, Nevada, and then up the side of a nearby
Mesa. Once on top, hands clamped to the wheel you bump over
roadless landscape,”viii whilst the journey to Spiral Jetty offered peril;
“…you drive for hours, illegally, across private land, the rancher
wreaking revenge by laving boulders on what passed for a track.”ix In
fact the journey was so hazardous and awkward that he had to
complete it by foot. I refer to this text for a particular reason for such
accounts are few, which highlights the uniqueness of such an
encounter. This is due to what Meyer has referred to in his criticism of
the Literal site, as the “privileged investigation,”x to which such
approaches to site entail. This criticism can be applied to not only
Land Art but also the sculptures that artists like Serra were producing
for specific public sites. For working with an actual physical site
reflects a perception of the site as unique and therefore the work itself
as uniquexi, and as such, demands the viewer’s presence to value its
inimitable quality (our thoughts return once more to the notion of the
monument.) However, there is greater cultural significance to be
considered in the artist’s necessity of site and their methods of
working. Engaging with the physical environment as a material was
not the only motive for these artists, nor was creating a monument. By
making (and taking) their work outside of the gallery environment the
artists, quite literally, took a step away from the art institution as a
whole. In doing so they released themselves from what has been
described as the “galleries differentiating function,” and the
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“confinement”xii of both its four walls of enclosure and the
predetermined expectations for engagement to which it had
monopolised. Up until this point expectation of art was still governed
by the paradigm of Modernism, particularly sculpture, which was
expected to “absorb its pedestal/base to sever its connection or to
express its indifference to the site, rendering itself more autonomous
and self-referential, thus transportable, placeless and nomadic.”xiii The
steel sculptures of the Minimalist artist Anthony Caro epitomise this
theory having toured numerous galleries around the world, one of the
most recent reincarnations occurring for the Tate Britain retrospect in
200? Whilst large and unyielding, these sculptures represent a
collectable art item, which can be ‘ appreciated’ regardless of its site.
The Site-specific works emerging in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly
those of the Land or Earth Art formulations, resisted this notion and
instead, “defied commodification by insisting on immobility.”xiv Kwon
has defined this oppositional impulse as “institutional critique,” the
idea of which was to “highlight the idealist hermeticism of the space of
presentation itself.”xv However, whilst critically engaged, it is apparent
that much of this work continued in the modernist trend of
reflexivity,xvi with a concern for the relationship between form and
content at its core. As a result, the work was dependent upon, not only
the singular site, but often the materials available on or close to the
site itself.
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There was however a shift away from the Literal site as a
physical entity beginning to occur during this period and in order to
uncover this we must look more closely at the work of Robert
Smithson. As I have stated, Smithson was a key founding member in
the Land/Earth Art movement, creating some of the largest and most
famous Earthworks to date. However, Smithson’s practice above
anyone else’s during the period (although he must not be considered
as the sole pioneer) represents an interdisciplinary and allegorical
mode of working that served to alter the viewers approach to the
work, and in some respects erode the need for a real time and space
encounter with a work in situ. Let us return to Smithson’s most
famous piece Spiral Jetty; made in 1970 in the Great Salt Lake in Utah
USA, as an example. The spiral itself was constructed with “two dump
trucks, a tractor and a large front loader”xvii that moved tons of earth
forming a spiral pathway that stretches out 1500 feet into the lake and
15 feet across, where it remains today. In construction it meets the
expected criteria of a Literal site-specific piece. However,
accompanying the giant Earthwork itself are a Film, numerous
photographic pieces, various maps, one explicit text from 1972, and a
number of others that concern the Jetty amongst more dominant
themes of enquiry [11]. Indeed, many, if not most of Smithson’s
Earthworks were accompanied by such documentation, which would
usually be displayed within a gallery context [12], or published in
books of his writing [13]. Considering this approach as a return to the
commodity item could be a possible, all be it cynical conclusion.
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Alongside this, it could be argued that they merely serve as records or
indexes for the often-ephemeral ‘outdoor’ site pieces, as many of his
works expected and even invited eventual destruction. Second Upside
down Tree (1969)[14] is an evident example of this; once uprooted the
tree could no longer have held itself to the beach to which it was
inserted. This interest in impermanence is one that Smithson shared
with a number of artists at this time, Oppenheim in particular, who
often worked with materials that were certain to alter after a relatively
short duration, such as cutting into crops for Cancelled Crop (1969)
and snow for Accumulation Cut (1969)[15&16]. However, it is important
to note that Entropy was one of the foremost concerns in Smithson’s
work, which is most explicitly examined in his writing and during
interviews; “After all, wreckage is often more interesting than
structure.”xviii
It would therefore be naive to say that the texts and imagery only
serve to breathe secondary life into the site-specific works in the form
of a gallery installation. Indeed, during an interview for Earth Smithson
identified this approach to his work as a dialectic of site and nonsite,”
whereby:
The range of convergence between site and nonsite consists of a course of hazards, a double path made up of signs, photographs, and maps that belong to both sides of the dialectic at once.xix The nonsite is a realisation of the limits of the site; the primary limit
being the physical sites incessant draw towards the outdoors. What
Smithson sought to create was a correspondence between the indoor
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and outdoors, a dialogue that took the viewer back and forth between
the two.xx The nonsites would often include containers that were filled
with materials that he had collected at specific sites, such as Slate or
Rock Salt, which were placed within the gallery context [17]. The
containers were frequently accompanied by photographs and maps
that were associated in some way with the physical site. The viewer is
therefore faced with signifiers of the site, through both fragments of
the physical; the shards of earth and rock, and representation; the
images and texts. Yet, as signifiers “the non-site functions in the
absence of a stable signified,”xxi as in the phenomenological sense, the
physical site eludes us. Smithson welcomed this, explaining, “What you
are really confronted with in a nonsite is the absence of the site,” thus
creating a “contraction rather than an expansion of scale.”xxii Indeed,
the great journey involved in collecting the materials, or in creating
Spiral Jetty for instance is expressed through an often abstract
process of mapping; the film containing footage of the trucks driving
through Utah, the photographs of the isolated site, the texts that
describe the journey and the materials that were physically brought
back to the gallery. This process creates the dialogue in which “you are
thrown back onto the site,”xxiii and yet remain in a gallery environment.
This doubling effect is one of absence and presence, which is made
possible by “...the Nonsite functioning as a mirror and the site
functioning as a reflection.”xxiv The two remain physically distant and
yet conceptually entwined, one is bound to the other; the viewer is
faced with neither and both simultaneously. Like a trekker or tracker,
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the viewer must be careful as to how they read the maps, for Smithson
himself admitted to the potential for misguidance, particularly with his
texts; “The equation of my language remains unstable, a shifting set
of coordinates, an arrangement of variables spilling into surds.”xxv This
highlights a sense of ambiguity in the work, which demanded a
cognitive engagement that site-specific practice had not particularly
asked of it’s viewer up until this point. Furthermore, this symbolises
an antithetical approach to the hegemony of Modernism and its
insistence of writing as a secondary tool in art practice. As Craig
Owens writes, “for the modernist artist…writing was not an alternative
medium for aesthetic practice; through it, work might be explained,
but never produced.”xxvi Where as for Smithson, as well as others,
Richard Long [18] for instance, writing could serve as the primary
means of artistic creation, as could the photograph, film, sculpture or
any number of mediums. This interdisciplinary approach to site is
what Meyer has since defined as the Functional site, which he
describes, in similar terms as Smithson did his nonsites, as involving:
…a process, an operation occurring between sites, a mapping of institutional and textual filitations and bodies that move between them (the artist’s above all.) It is an informational site, a palimpsest of text, photographs and video recordings, physical places and things.xxvii The most distinguished development from the Literal site being that,
like the Nonsite, the Functional site “may or may not incorporate a
physical place.”xxviii
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Through this disturbance of Modernism’s ascendancy, such
work represents a progression towards Postmodernism, to which
Smithson’s influence cannot be overlooked. Owens has observed that
Smithson’s practice “transformed the visual field into a textual one,”xxix
which represents a major turning point in the history of site-specific
practice. The development of the functional approach to site allowed
artists to investigate site with any manner of medium. But it also gave
them the ability to write and rewrite their findings and not just
through the restriction of text, but again, with any medium. To
illustrate this let us return once again to my earlier example of
Christian Phillip Müller’s The Heart of the Periphery (1989). As I have
stated, the artist orchestrated the piece in the form of a tour, a
method that he has often deployed in his work. In simulating a
conventional guided tour, but with the artist as official ‘guide,’ both
the artist and the audience members become part of a travelling
performance. This concept represents an early formation of relational
aestheticsxxx (to which Müller has been considered a seminal
instigator), as the work is dependant upon the audience for its
completion; without them there is no tour.xxxi In this sense the work
demands a phenomenological encounter of the viewer, however it
involves a series of sites of (supposed) interest involving the gardens
surrounding an eighteenth century chateau- all of which elude them.
Yet there is a conscious decision involved in selecting the site/s. In
misleading the unwitting tourists into his work, and one that is full of
falsehood, Müller draws our attention to the fact that “…the idealist
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fantasies of the beautiful and the Picturesque are still integral to the
logic of tourism.”xxxii This piece shares a similar dialogue to that of
Smithson’s site and nonsite to which he once explained, “tours to sites
are possible, these sites do not offer an effective point of destination
in which to resolve the non-sites deferral of attention…once you get
there, there’s no destination.”xxxiii Müller’s tour has a destination, but it
does not match that of the eighteenth century tourist’s that he is
critiquing, for whom, “Tourism…was an aristocratic pastime conducted
at a leisurely pace.”xxxiv The tourists, faced with a modern urban scene,
are offered a mirror that reflects their own “late twentieth century
capitalist society,” to which tourism “has become a democratised if
ephemeral pleasure, a momentary escape from a highly rationalised
work schedule.”xxxv Another of Müller’s later tours, Eight Treks across
the Austrian Border, [19] conceived for the Austrian Pavilion of the
1993 Venice Biennale, focused on the artist’s lone journey where he
trekked across the borders of Austria into its neighbouring countries.
He did so without the correct visas, thus illegally, with a photographer
who recorded his movements. The artist then mailed the post cards to
his art dealers.xxxvi As a result this performative and ephemeral act
exists only through representation. It differs to The Heart of the
Periphery in that it is the artist alone (bar the photographer) who
experiences the act in actuality. However, the artist is once more
alluding to individuals of history, which he simulates through his
movements; namely “unwanted immigrant of the post-colonial era,”xxxvii
who experienced the border crossing as an act of survival. Meyer has
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highlighted this heightened concern with the history of site, and the
traveller in particular, by defining it as Critical Nomadism. The Critical
Nomad artist “… does not enact or record an action or movement for
the spectator’s delectation, so much as locate travel itself within
historical frameworks.”xxxviii As is often the case with his writing, Meyer
offers a polar notion, which he defines as Lyrical Nomadism. In this
case the “material conditions in which mobility occurs” are generally
highlighted through the artist’s physical circulation as
phenomenological encounter.xxxix One example of this Lyrical
nomadism is a serial piece by the Afro-American artist Renee Green,
who has also been labelled under the Relational aesthetics banner. The
piece, first created for a group show in France, Project unite, and later
for a New York show where she titled it Secret, [20] involved the
installation of a tent inside the gallery space which “served as her
sleeping quarters for the show’s duration.”xl The viewer could then
stumble into the pseudo domestic space and be confronted by the
artist in any state of her everyday existence. Meyer has also noted this
as Green’s own acknowledgment of “her role as artist working in an
increasingly global art scene.”xli Thus as an institutional critique, “this
shelter within a shelter alluded to the nomad artists’ plight of never
standing still.”xlii Once more we are reminded of Smithson’s nonsites,
which he not only described as “rooms within rooms,”xliii as recognition
of their physical presence, but furthermore, “container(s) within
container(s).”xliv Greens tent, like the nonsite containers mirror and
therefore draw attention to their site: the gallery institution, the
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ultimate container for art and artists. Another of Green’s installations,
Partially Buried (1997) [21] continued in the autobiographical trend set
in her previous work but also set about exploring a specific part of
history; the year 1970. The reason for this was two fold. Firstly it
corresponded with the point at which her mother was studying at Kent
State University, a period that saw serious student protests- which her
mother did not recollect.xlv Secondly it represents a period of major
development in the history of site-specific art. The two are bound by a
specific act; the creation of Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed, [21]
a piece that involved a truck dumping earth onto a woodshed, created
on the University campus that year. The making of Green’s work
involved numerous journeys to the site and her home town as well the
recording of various interviews with people who were associated with
the events. However the installation did not include any physical
matter from the sites, even with the explicit connection to Smithson’s
own practice. Instead the viewer is offered fragments of information,
and indeed history, through video, photography, audio and text. Faced
with the challenge of sifting through this informational site the viewer
is free to draw their own conclusions from the records and documents
that the artist has uncovered through her exploration of the topic. As
Green has stated, her intentions, although not the final conclusion of
her work is clear:
“Hopefully my work demonstrates the complexity of things that make one authoritative statement about the way things are as specious.”xlvi
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In many ways the shift from the literal site as a singular, physical
entity was destined to occur due to its close ties to Modernism which
was eventually superseded by Postmodernism. For whilst there was an
active rebellion against modernism’s autonomy; its commodity item
and placeless sculpture in particular during the 1960-80’s, as we have
seen, the modernist tendency for reflexivity was still one shared by
many of the artists engaging with site-specificity. In this sense the
literal approach served to privilege the site, and those who could
encounter it. However, as the art world’s outlook changed with the
development of postmodernity, so too did many of those interested in
site-specificity, which undoubtedly created a counter influence to this
development. The dialogue of site and nonsite woven throughout
Smithson’s practice was certainly archetypal in this progression. The
nonsite, acting as mirror to not only the physical site, but also the
galleries confinement added further layers of complexity to site-
specific practice. As a result the need for an actual site was diminished
and as apposed to a phenomenological encounter with a real place the
viewer was introduced to a dialogue across multiple disciplines in the
form of an information-based, functional site. The allegory of such
work, often functioning as a map rather than destination, demanded a
cognitive approach to the work, be it in the form of a photograph,
text, video, sculpture or multidisciplinary installation. In addition
artists also began to realise the potential for multiple sites as well as
mediums. The rules had been loosened considerably and the limits of
site stretched. And as the world became more globalized and the artist
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more of a traveller, the artist’s movements from site to site became
part of the critique, particularly of the art institution. What is more, by
this point there was an established and globally recognised history of
site-specificity with which to critique, with many artists, such as Green
with Partially Buried, referencing the practices of the 1960-70’s site-
specific artists in their own work. Indeed, this piece also highlights a
more recent concern with history in general, and with overtones of
Modernist reflexivity, particular interest for the traveller in history;
mirroring the artist’s own, often fragmented existence. With the
development of ‘movements’ like Relational aesthetics in the early
1990’s the viewer was also bought directly into the work, or as part of
a process, often in a performative role where the artist functions as
creator, author, protagonistxlvii or even curator of their work. Miwon
Kwon offers possibly the most concurrent reflection of recent site
based practice with her notion of Discursive site practice:
“The distinguishing characteristic of today’s site-orientated art is the way in which the art work’s relationship to the actuality of a location (the site) and the social conditions of the institutional frame (as site) are both subordinate to a discursively determined site that is delineated as a field of knowledge, intellectual exchange or cultural debate.”xlviii For whilst she too recognises the importance of the artist’s nomadic
movements in creating this intertextual chain, she sees the work
“more like an itinerary than a map.”xlix Instead of a series of signposts
that may incur restrictions, the viewer is faced with various
information relating to a site that has been uncovered and organised
by the artist. This may be contained within a gallery environment or
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possibly elsewhere. But, most importantly, it opens a discussion with
which the viewer may enter and add to through their own reflections.
i Serra, R. 1994 p.203 ii Suderberg, E. 2000 p23-35 for James Meyer’s text The Functional Site; or, The Transformation of Site Specificity in which the Literal Site is discussed. Whilst Miwon Kwon does not explicitly refer to site as Literal site in the same way to Meyer she does use the term to describe certain aspects, see Kwon M. 2004 p.3/14/19/24/51 iii Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.24-25 iv Kwon, M. op.cit. p.2 v Coles, A. 2000 p.17 For James Meyer’s text Nomads: Figures of Travel in Contemporary Art see p10-26 vi Kastner, J. 1998 p.25 vii Darwen, C. 2007 p.125 viii idem ix idem x Suderberg, E.op.cit. p.23 xi Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.24 xii Kaye, N. 2000 p.93&94 xiii Kwon, M. op.cit. p.11 xiv Kwon, M. op.cit. p.31 xv Kwon, M. op.cit.p.13. For Institutional Critique see p.13-24 xvi Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.26 xvii Flam, J. 1996 p.146. For Smithson’s full text Spiral Jetty (1972) see p.143-153 xviii Flam, J. op.cit. p.257. For further reading on Smithson & Entropy see Entropy and the New Monuments (1966) p.10-23 and also p.74, 102, 206, 219, 256-258, 293, 298-299, 301-309 xix Flam, J. op.cit. p.153 For more on the Dialecttic between Site and Nonsite see p152&153 xx Taken from the full quote “The site, in a sense, is the physical raw reality- the earth or the ground that we are not really aware of when we are in an interior room or studio….So I decided that I would set limits in terms of this dialogue (its back and forth rhythm that goes between indoors and outdoors.” Flam, J. op.cit p178. For more see the full interview, p177-187 xxi Kaye, N. loc.cit. xxii Flam, J. op.cit. p.193 xxiii Flam, J. op.cit. p.180 xxiv Flam, J. op.cit. p.193 xxv Flam, J. op.cit. p.150 xxvi Kastner, J. op.cit. p.281. For the full Craig Owen text see p281-282 xxvii Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.25. For more on the Functional site see p.24-35 xxviii idem xxix Kastner, J. loc.cit. xxx
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xxxi It is interesting to note that there are no images of the piece with which to represent it. xxxii Coles, A. op.cit. p.19 xxxiii Kaye, N. op.cit. p.98 xxxiv Coles, A. loc.cit. xxxv idem xxxvi Coles, A. op.cit. p.20. The postcards were mailed directly by M “to his dealers in Cologne and New York…in allusion to On Kawara(s)” life long artistic practice whereby he mails canvases and postcards with the date of creation painted upon them to his dealers. xxxvii Coles, A. op.cit p.19 xxxviii Coles, A. op.cit p.11 xxxix idem xl Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.34 xli Coles, A. op.cit p.22 xlii Suderberg, E. op.cit. p.23 xliii Flam, J. op.cit. p.193 xliv Flam, J. op.cit. p.153 xlv Cruz, A.1997 p.49 xlvi Cruz, Amada op.cit. p.47 xlvii Kwon, M. op.cit. p.51 xlviii Kwon, M. op.cit. p.26. For more on the Discursive see p.26-56. xlix Kwon, M. op.cit. p.29. For more on Itinerant Artists see p.46-56.
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Bibliography Texts Beardsley, John. Earthworks and Beyond New York: Abbeville Press Publishing, 1989 Boettger, Suzaan. Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties California: University of California Press, 2002 Cruz, Amada. Performance Anxiety Chicago: The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 1997. Coles, Alex (ed.) Site-specificity: The Ethnographic turn London: Black Dog Publishing, 2000 Darwen, Charles “Land Art in the American South West” Art Review Oct. 2007: 122-133 Flam, Jack (ed.) Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings California: University of California Press, 1996 Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (ed.) Art in Theory 1900-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 Hopkins, David After modern Art 1945-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 Hughes, Robert The Shock of the New. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1991 Kastner, Jeffery & Wallis, Brian (ed.) Land and Environmental Art London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1998 Kaye, Nick. Site Specific art: Performance, Place, Documentation London: Routledge, 2000 Kwon, Miwon. One place after another: site-specific art and local identity Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2004
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Osbourne, Peter (ed.) Conceptual Art London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002 Serra, Richard. Writings, Interviews Chicago: University if Chicago Press, 1994 Shapiro, Gary. Earthwards: Robert Smithson and Art after Babel California: University of California Press, 1995 Stangos, Nikos (ed.) Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to Postmodernism. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. 2003 Suderberg, Erika (ed.) Site, Space, Intervention: Situating Installation Art Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 World Wide Web sites www.robertsmithson.com
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[1] Richard Serra, Tilted Arc (1981)
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[2] The Pyramid of Giza, Egypt (2056BC) [3] Michelangelo, Ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel, Rome (1512)
[4] Stone Henge, Wiltshire (Est. 2200BC)
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[5] Michael Heizer, Double Negative (1969) [6] Dennis Oppenheim, Annual Rings (1968)
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[7] Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970)
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[8] Richard Long, A Line made by Walking (1967)
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[9] Michael Heizer, Rift (1968)
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[10] Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1977)
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[11] Anthony Caro, Early One Morning (1962)
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[13] Robert Smithson, A page from a text. [14] Robert Smithson, Upside Down tree (1969)
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[15] Dennis Oppenheim, Cancelled Crop (1969) [16] Dennis Oppenheim, Acculation Cut (1969)
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[17] Robert Smithson, Non-Site Franklin, New Jersey (1968)
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[18] Richard Long, A 5-Day Walk in Powys (2001)
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[19] Christian Philipp Müller, Eight Treks across the Austrian Border
(1993)
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[20] Renée Green, Partially Buried (1997)
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[21] Robert Smithson, Partially Buried Woodshed (1970)
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