Day 275: Site-ing

Agnes Denes (b. 1938). 'Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space—Map Projections: The Snail', 1979. Whitney Museum of American Art.

"In the postwar period, the traditional notion of art as a discrete object has changed to include environments, places, and sites. The critic Harold Rosenberg famously described painting as "an arena in which to act," and since the 1950s artists have continuously expanded on that idea. In Earth art and performance-based works, the museum or gallery (and enclosed architecture in general) became a boundary to transgress or at least acknowledge as both a container and a barrier. In much contemporary practice, the process of making a work of art has become part of the content. Many artists treat their work as a continuous project in which the studio extends into the real world and/ or is brought into traditional spaces. The art itself may become a site or it may create one—a place and a space with its own rules and internal logic. This exhibition, drawn from the Whitney’s permanent collection, explores how the idea of sites allows for a more experiential role for the spectator as well the creation of new types of spaces, whose qualities might be unbound, drawn in, or otherwise made pliant by their creators".

- from Sites, Whitney.org