Site, Ascendant

By David Heymann, Places

December 13, 2010

The role of site in various forms of Western cultural production has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years. Roughly speaking, where once site was seen as setting, now it is seen as source. It’s easiest to see this change in certain evolutions within Western artwork over the past 50 years. Compare, for example, Andy Goldsworthy’s Rain Shadow to Henry Moore’s Large Spindle Piece. As the artist Robert Irwin has pointed out, the Moore may work well in landscape (in the photograph it has temporarily landed at Kenyon College), but even here we perceive that the work is fundamentally about the internal concerns of Moore within his oeuvre, and has little to do with the qualities of this specific place. More … http://places.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=21159.