site-specific & expanded drawing: James McCallum

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Wednesday, 14 February 2024

JAMES McCALLUM

James McCallum,

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

right: documentation, 2009

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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.