This has to be one of the more difficult readings I've encountered in talking about art. Its dense, verbose, and very very academic. The introduction itself was a bit overbearing summing up each chapter rather than overall message.
I couldn't make it through 3 pages without turning to the dictionary/internet to find out about underlying theories several times. I found the entire chapter seemed to assume previous reading of several other textbooks/theories. Though this itself is not necessarily bad it just frustrates me a bit.
However, Kwons work goes into much greater depth into how site-specific design has evolved over time. Going from inside the gallery to analyzing the site of the gallery through such pieces as 'Measurement: Room' and 'Within and Beyond the Frame'. It really shows how artists/art evolved out of the gallery rather than just suddenly appearing as a movement. It allowed artists to truly interact with their site as a piece of work, to question it and criticize it.
Mierle Uskele's work was itself genius in creating "maintenance art" questioning the very how of the white walls and floors. Who keeps these spaces clean late at night, forcing the audience to see the work happening during the day/operating hours. It also brings into question the gender roles of the work she was doing in cleaning.
Some of the examples seemed to truly confuse me though. Specifically Mark Dion's On Tropical Nature had a confusing definition of site. He divided it up into four parts, four specific 'sites' though I couldn't for the life of me believe that beyond the site in the rain-forest and the site in the gallery that the third and fourth sites existed other than as conceptual ideas. In my opinion it was a bit much. How do we define a site? Is it simply physical? Do sight lines constrain a work? Can a work influence an entire area even if it can't always be seen?
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