Place
Response to Catherin David and Irit Rogoff's discussion from "From Studio to Situation".
In this article, Irit Rogoff raises an interesting issue from a curator’s perspective, the concept of site-specificity.
Rogoff shares there is a similarity in the way contemporary artists approach the site and the way cultural anthropologists work with sites. The methodology cultural anthropologists employ when approaching site is through a concept of fieldwork. (David and Rogoff 86) Often called as rapport in their terms, it is defined as ‘establishing a good trusting relationship with a subject of investigation through personal contact’ (Bernard 16) explicitly in the context of ethno-anthropology. According to Rogoff this model of engagement is embodied in Hans Haacke’s works on MOMA NY Real Estate (David and Rogoff 86). Haacke’s site-spefific artworks have directly engaged with ‘place’, a location. It seems like a faithful vow has been made to reveal and uncover the truth about the site by investing personal time to get to know the place as you would exactly in a inter-personal relationship.
This notion of engaging with site through art making cannot ignore a socio-culturally loaded factor. Rogoff supplies an example of Israeli artist Avital Geva successfully being able to fuse the national rhetoric yet still deliver a site-specific production that is not outdated. This made me think about what kind of position New Zealand is up against. As Robert Leonard from the Round Table discussion tells us the dominant master-narrative of decolonisation heavily presides over New Zealand art criticism (Barton 24) if you are involved with addressing the site, the land. So this automatically embedded socio-cultural theory obscures where the real attention to be paid towards. (24) This is a difficult position for site-specific artist in New Zealand to be in. I guess extra caution is needed to take heed because there is nothing like unwanted interpretations of your work hijacking audience and critics away from the actual discussion you intended to open up.
-This article was published in From Studio to Situation, a book looking at artistic criticism and practice of context and site-specificity in the production of contemporary art.
Both David and Rogoff are writers, critics and curators actively involved in contemporary art world internationally. Robert Leonard is the director of the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia.
Bernard, Alan. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge, UK :Cambridge University Press, 2000
Barton, Christina. “Round Table: The State of Art and Discourse in New Zealand” Reading Room: A Journal of Art and Culture. Issue 03 (2009): 6-29. Print
Catherine David and Irit Rogoff. “In Conversation”, in Claire Doherty ed., From Studio to Situation, London: Black Dog Publishing, 2004
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Hi Soo,
ReplyDeleteWith site-specific work, artists often come across sociological, anthropological and cultural concerns, which I've found within my own work recently. I think your comment on interpretation is extremely valid; artists need to be cautious when focusing on place and identity. A question I found myself asking at the end of your response was, when interpreting the land of Aotearoa/New Zealand how does an artist overcome or work with the landscapes imbedded history?
-Lia