Place

A space contains its own meanings, and a unique spirit infused with culture. "Societies transform places, imbuing them with memories, histories, and symbolic significance; they also change them physically"(153). Time, place, memory, and history are intertwined within settings. The art of an indigenous Australian tribe, painted in a cave, will have a much different atmosphere and personality than the art of a classic Impressionist painter hanging in the Louvre museum in Paris because of the diverging contexts and meanings of each culture and place. Being in place or out of place is the preoccupation of us all at one time or another. The implication is that "a defined location is valuable and normal" (154).

German painter Anselm Kiefer remembers history through art, specifically Nazi concentration camps. "Beginning in the 1980s, Kiefer created a widely exhibited series of paintings showing charred fields and cavernous rooms with flaming ovens" (153). A place can be deeply entrenched with the memory of a specific historical event, or many histories. People reaffirm identity and heritage based on their place in time.

Art has the ability to transport a viewer (and artist) into a new place. Art can challenge us to see a framed space in time in a new way. An artist might paint as a means of escape from their current pschological or typological setting. A piece of art can reveal the landscape of an artist's history in a specific society, but can also attempt to be fantastical or provide a fresh visual space.

Robertson, Jean, and Craig McDaniel. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. Second Edition. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.