Site Specific Works

Site specific works of art have long been used throughout art history. However, for a while artists did tend to separate their art work from the location that it was either designed for or being shown at; allowing the artwork to be moved from place to place, and the viewer to get the same reaction from it. With site specific art works coming back, artists have to gain a better understanding of the environment in which they plan on placing their pieces. In the past “much art was permanently located in one place, the connection between art and its context seemed conceptually (sometimes literally) indissoluble” (McDaniel 158). Artists would make their works intended for a specific spot, and that spot only. Artists have begun reusing this idea of a permanent space mentality.

Richard Serra is an artist that created a work designed for a specific space. His sculpture Tilted Arc was designed for the Federal Plaza in New York, NY. Serra created this sculpture wanting the viewer to become “aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer’s movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes” (PBS). His creation of the work at this particular site led Serra to want the viewer to become involved with the sculpture, to have to move as a result of it, with the sculpture becoming part of the environment.

Each site specific artists works differently. Some want their works to become involved with their surrounding, and others want them to evoke a particular emotion out of the viewer in response to the area in which it is located. It is this “conscious awareness of place informs the work of a wide range of contemporary artists” (McDaniel 151). Artists are gaining a stronger understanding of their surroundings, and they are using it within their works to evoke a deeper meaning from their audience.

"Culture Shock: Flashpoints: Visual Arts: Richerd Serra's Tilted Arc." PBS. Web. 07 Apr. 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/tiltedarc_a.html.

McDaniel, Craig, and Jean Robertson, eds. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.