Concept about ‘site-specificity’
This week’s course digs into the concept of SITES in art curation, encompassing site-specific, site-responsive, and site-sensitive artworks. The course will address several topics including the physical, historical, social, and anthropological dimensions. Julie presents many categories of places, including home, public, post-industrial, and heritage spaces, and examines how they influence artworks.Site-specific art holds significant importance and worth in contemporary art due to its ability to question the autonomy and self-referential nature of modernist sculpture. It achieves this by intimately integrating artworks with their surroundings and emphasizing the connection and sensory experience between the artworks and the viewers (kwon). This art form not only emphasizes the formal and aesthetic aspects of the artwork, but also considers its social and political relevance, thereby giving it a wider effect and worth.
In terms of selecting a curatorial location, the concept of ‘site-specificity’ is a commonly employed idea in exhibition essays, art reviews, and artist statements (Miwon Kwon, 2002). Mainstream art organizations and discourses have embraced site-specificity as a way to address the connection between a work of art and its specific location.In this respect, artists and curators have shifted their attention from the characteristics of the artwork itself to the characteristics of the location where the artwork is shown. The site is becoming increasingly important in curatorial action, as modern art defines and depends on it.
Note:
Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another : Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity / Miwon Kwon. Cambridge, Mass. ; MIT Press, 2002. Print.
Individual Project Progress
My exhibition took place at the Fruitmarket Gallery, located on Market Street in the heart of the city, adjacent to Edinburgh’s Waverley railway station. The gallery was founded in 1974 on the location of the Fruit and Vegetable Market, which was constructed in 1938. The building currently has a café and a bookshop that provide a selection of art, architecture, design, photography, and magazines, along with a variety of children’s books. Since 2003, the gallery has hosted several exhibitions, including ‘Childish Things’ curated by David Hopkins, ‘The Possibility of Objects: Modernity and Possibilities’ curated by Paulo Venancio Filho. In 2021, at Reiach and Hall Architects The gallery resumed operations following a phase of renovation carried out by Reiach and Hall Architects, which involved expanding into the adjacent western building. While the renovated gallery maintains its brightness and shine, the newly constructed warehouse possesses a rougher, more industrial quality and will continue to showcase an ambitious selection of Scottish and international contemporary art.
The art exhibition is geographically limited and benefits from a track record of featuring both Scottish and global contemporary art. My display, centered around the topics of food waste and environmental protection, aligns well with the site’s thematic focus.
Fruitmarket Gallery, 2022
Group Work
Our conversation about our individual curatorial locations revealed that most of our members have established their venues in Scotland, specifically in Edinburgh and Glasgow. A few shows have taken place outside of Scotland, namely in London and Japan. Consequently, our group project involved merging our chosen locations onto a single map.
Maps in progress
