site-specific & expanded drawing

Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Tony Cragg

Silent Garden 1983

https://www.tony-cragg.com/works/sculptures/1980-1989/

Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Cheng Feng Kevin Yu,

Cheng Feng Kevin Yu, France 2022 (cutout card and found ground fixture)

untitled Facebook post on https://www.facebook.com/chengfeng.k.yu

Cheng Feng Kevin Yu (wood, found place, light)

untitled Facebook post 22 Feb 2024

https://www.facebook.com/chengfeng.k.yu

Sunday, 18 February 2024

GABRIEL OROZCO

GABRIEL OROZCO, ISLA EN LA ISLA (ISLAND WITHIN AN ISLAND) 1993

cibachrome print Walker Art Center

Found material arranged to make a likeness of the city in the distance. The artwork exists as the cibachrome image, not as the actual assemblage/installation.

CHARLES SIMONDS

Charles Simons Dwelling 1980-9

Charles Simonds, Dwelling, unfired clay and found building, in Rooms (P.S.1) 1976 (see details in PATRICK IRELAND post) This work resembles drawing in its temporary, sketch-like quality and scale.

http://www.charles-simonds.com/

Isaac Nixon

Isaac Nixon, untitled floor drawing, NAS 2016, masking tape and found floor

Margaret Roberts

Margaret Roberts, Cloud, 2015, plasticine and found brick wall

Sue Callanan

Sue Callanan Shifting Sands 2008

found worker's sand, stencil

Saturday, 17 February 2024

From 1959 to 1961 Manzoni drew lines in ink onto rolls of paper of different lengths, which he packaged in cylindrical black cardboard containers. These tubes had a label stating the month and year of execution, the length of the line in centimeters and a certificate of authenticity. On July 4, 1960 (between 4pm and the 6.55pm), in a printing works at Herning in Denmark, Manzoni created his longest line (7,200 metes), which he vacuum-sealed in a chromium-plated metal cylinder and then buried it so it could be unearthed by chance some time in the future. The artist’s aim was that this would be the first of a series of very long lines to be left in all the world’s principal cities. The sum total of the lengths of the lines in this series was intended to measure the circumference of the earth. (Text Courtesy : Milan, Nada Vigo collection)

https://www.hauserwirth.com/ursula/25222-piero-manzonis-lines/

Cheng Feng Kevin Yu

Cheng Feng Kevin Yu, France, Feb/Mar 2022 - cutout coloured card and found road fixture: untitled Facebook post on https://www.facebook.com/chengfeng.k.yu

Friday, 16 February 2024

EMMA WISE

Emma Wise Cut to Fit 2006 (paper, found territory, found government policy) Sculpture by the Sea 2006

This work snipped off three sections of the Bondi to Bronte cliffs at a time when the Howard government had recently excised northern Australia from our migration zone. Here, the paper dashes are as ephemeral as the federal government’s line may prove to be. Recent changes have extended the legislation to cover the whole of Australia. The work won a prize at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi (thanks judge Geoffrey Edwards). see more

PATRICK IRELAND

Patrick Ireland, Rope drawing No 19, PS1, 1976.

Image from ROOMS P.S.1, catalogue of 1976 exhibition of works by 78 artists, curated by Alanna Heiss, founder of P.S.1. When Heiss founded it, P.S.1 was the ex-Public School #1, located in 46th Road, Long Island City, Queens.

PS1 is now part of the Museum of Modern Art.

Ireland's rope drawing is made from varied lengths of white rope hanging to just above floor level, and attached to the ceiling by lighter rope. It is located in an ex-classroom of PS1, and thus suggests the chalk lines that would have once been made on the blackboards, as well as the children who once occupied the classroom. Patrick Ireland was the artist name of the art writer Brian O'Doherty.

Alanna Heiss introduced the catalogue by explaining the exhibition as: 'Rooms (P.S.1) represents an attempt to deal with a problem. Most museums and galleries are designed to show masterpieces; objects made and planned elsewhere for exhibition in relatively neutral spaces. But many artists today do not make self-contained masterpieces; they do not want to and they do not try to. Nor are they for the most part interested in neutral spaces. Rather their work includes the space it's in; embraces it, uses it. Viewing space becomes not frame but material. And that makes it hard to exhibit.

This show, ROOMS (P.S.1) is an attempt to face that problem. . . .'

Bianca Hester

Bianca Hester, Hoops, 2014,

blue metal hoops, human energy, time and found hard ground

see more: Sarah Scout Presents

2014 Sydney Biennale

Robin Rhode

From a very early age Robin Rhode was influenced by wall paintings in Johannesburg. These were for him an important poetical counterpoint to the city's urban violence. Today he creates performances during which he or an actor draws on walls or on the floor. Using white chalk, charcoal crayon, water and industrial paint, he depicts objects around which he develops a pantomime inspired by street culture. When drawing a candle, he attempts to extinguish it by blowing; when drawing a bicycle he tries to clean it with a bucket of water. In Microphone (2005) shown above, the absence of sound and the movement of the protagonist spark the spectator's imagination as to the content of the speech or rap song. The work evokes the engagement and revolt of a speaker who harangues his audience. (Wall notes accompanying Micophone in the Pompidou Centre). Read more about Robin Rhode.

Chelsea Coon

Chelsea Coon 9:50:45 2017 Photo: Sue Callanan

9:50:45 is a new site-specific performance by Chelsea Coon especially created for Articulate project space in Leichhardt, Sydney.

9:50:45 will be of 6 hours duration each day: 11am - 5pm daily, Tues 21- Sun 26 March 2017,

9:50:45 is the time that two black holes collided in space on September 14, 2015. In her six day durational performance, Coon will create an installation of traces of the body's response to the space and will emphasize past, present and future time as well as focus on the body's interconnected relationship on an elemental level to manifestations in the universe.

www.chelseacoon.info

Scott Sinclair

Scott Sinclair Body line (chest) Single channel video, 1:36min, NAS, 2016

link to video

Wednesday, 14 February 2024

JAMES McCALLUM

James McCallum,

left: line-shape made by joining found wall protrusions, Cockatoo Island, 2009

right: documentation, 2009

IDA LAWRENCE

Ida Lawrence, Re-Reflect, chalk, canvas and found site, Cockatoo Island 2009

Ida Lawrence, ink on paper drawing of Re-Reflect, 2009

Frequently asked questions

How is site-specific and expanded drawing different from other drawing?

Unlike a sheet of paper, the site is usually shared with and owned by others, and the artist needs to negotiate with the owner on how it is used. Unless an other agreement is negotiated with site owners, the basic rules are that the site is returned to how it is found, and that artists only use materials they know can be removed without leaving mark or damage to the site. Any damage made by an artist needs to be restored at their own cost.

What is the site in site-specific art?

A site can be a physical place or a context an artist finds or constructs. Artworks whose site is the physical space that is found in all places on the planet can usually be moved from place to place, depending on how the artwork makes its connection with the site. Artworks whose site is the particular history, shape or other aspect of a particular place will be less mobile.

More recently, the term 'site-specific' has also been used for an artistic representation of a particular place, regardless of whether the site/place is literally part of the artwork or not. This reverses the original use of the term which was for artworks in which the actual physical location is made an essential part of the work. These include installation, situated sculpture, situated media and so on. The physical location was made part of the work to demonstrate the difference between an actual physical place and its pictorial representation, to demonstrate that the artwork values the place in which it is located, to resist commodification, and so on.

This blog uses the term 'site specific in its original meaning. Recently other terms such as site-responsive, site-sensitive and so on have been used as variants of the original term, 'site-specific'. One reason why 'site-specific' was originally chosen may be because even when an artwork uses a part of physical space that can be found almost anywhere in the built environment (eg Carl Andre's floor works), it will always still be a specific site.

Examples of drawing that focuses on a place without necessarily being site-specific in the early sense being used here, are included on drawingandplace.blogspot.com

Why does site-specific art need to be documented?

Documentation of site-specific work is important if the artwork is temporal or immobile and the artist wants it to be more accessible, part of the historical record or be more saleable. Documentation is sometimes constructed to acknowledge the difference between the place and its representation. The artwork is sometimes the sited work and sometimes the documentation.

Why is site-specific art temporal?

It is temporal if the site is owned by others and the artwork needs to be removed so that the place can be used for other purposes. Or it may be temporal if it is made so that it is destroyed by the passage of time (eg by ice melting). Some site-specific work is permanent if that is the wish of the site's owner.

How is site-specific drawing different from site-specific art?

Site-specific art is just a more general term that includes site-specific drawing.

Why do artists make site-specific drawing?

Artists make site-specific drawing for their own reasons. Some use a site as if it is a big sheet of paper. Others use it to explore a place or a context using drawing-related means such as line and shape. It is used when artists want to form different relationships with places or contexts than is usually available through drawing on paper, eg because an artist wants to focus on a drawing's location or context more than on the drawing's internal space.

Why is it called site-specific?

It called site-specific partly for historical reasons and because it is now a commonly understood term. Miwon Kwon in One Place After Another now uses more general terms such as site-related. Edward Casey in The Fate of Place uses place rather than site to mean the physical places people occupy. The term specific was used because site-specific art was intended to not be autonomous or portable like most artwork. There is not always agreement on what artwork should be called site-specific, however. You could use another term that you think is more accurate - eg you could call it spatial drawing if the work focuses on relationships between different spaces - such as the illusory space of drawing and the physical space a drawing occupies. Or it could be called expanded drawing after Rosalind Krauss' discussion of Sculpture in the Expanded Field (like the term expanded painting.)

What is the difference between site-specific drawing and expanded drawing? 'Expanded drawing' is a more recent term and is a term that focuses more on where it has 'expanded' from (ie from the discipline of 'drawing' or from the paper on which drawing is usually made, etc), whereas 'site-specific' is a term that has more emphasis on the site or place that the drawing incorporates in some way.

This blog is made to support drawing practices at the National Art School in Sydney.