The Museum as Art: site-specific art in Australia's public museums

I'm finally at the pointy end of my PhD - the bit where you're trying to decipher the doorstop Chicago Manual of Style, work out how to resize images, and battle Microsoft Word's tendency to switch back to US English spelling half way through a spell check.  I know it's not my usual blog writing style, but here's my abstract anyway:

This thesis critically examines site-specific art projects in Australian museums from the late 1960s onwards.  Despite the fact that site-specific art practice is relatively widespread, there have been few in-depth or systematic studies published on this subject, particularly in terms of its historical and theoretical foundations.  More importantly, there have been no in-depth studies explicitly on Australian site-specific art, and so my research aims to extend the existing knowledge on this art form while applying it to an Australian context. 

Because the site-specific field is vast, I narrowed my research to focus on artworks located in museums, including art, natural history, cultural history museums, historic houses and sites, and botanic gardens.  The inclusion of such a wide range of museums is in part due to the fact that the artistic projects in these institutions vary greatly.  Additionally, the comparisons between art museums, and those in which art is a (usually) temporary visitor reveal certain aspects of Australian culture, values and colonial history, than discussing art museums alone.  The title, ‘the museum as art’, refers to the role of the museum as site, subject and medium in the site-specific works of art under examination. It reinforces the significant relationship and dialogue with the museum in question - the museum is an integral part of the artwork.

The key aim of this thesis is to identify and critically analyse significant site-specific art projects undertaken in Australian museums by both local and international artists.  I also critique existing theoretical writings about site-specific art, particularly the paradigms established by Miwon Kwon and James Meyer and devise my own working models as applicable to museum-based site-specific art.   The aim is not to replace these paradigms, but to expand on existing models using local and more recent examples.  Although this thesis focuses on Australian site-specific art practice, and the way in which Australian museums construct knowledge and reflect national values, my models are equally relevant to international museums.

The chapters in this thesis are arranged thematically, centred around significant art examples which are in turn used to illustrate wider issues relating to site-specific art practice.  In analysing a large number of art projects, I have observed a range of strategies used by artists working in museums. Firstly, an artwork may respond to the physical or spatial aspects of the museum.  Artworks also frequently interact with a museum’s collection or archives, or question the institution’s representation of history or social constructions of nature.  Others mimic museum classification strategies or highlight ingrained display methods that have become normalised, almost invisible, to the average visitor.  More functionally, the work might be used by curators to enliven tired museum spaces or communicate aspects of history poetically, allowing for speculative histories or subjective responses – methods unavailable to regular historians.  Lastly, an artwork may seek to preserve intangible heritage or highlight gaps in knowledge or history, particularly when it comes to the representation of Aboriginal Australians or women.

I argue that current site-specific art practice reflects a move away from the Modernist frame, illustrated by the growing popularity of non-art museum sites and converted ex-industrial ‘raw’ spaces, particularly since the mid-1990s.  Theorists such as Kwon and Meyer tend to ignore the pre-Modernist philosophy towards art, where art frequently sat in dialogue with the site.  However, contemporary site-specific art practice, although distinctly different to the pre-Modern site/art relationship, indicates an acknowledgment and celebration of the unavoidable influence of exhibition environments on works of art.

At the start of this research, I questioned the notion of an ‘Australian art’; however, I can now demonstrate that site-specific art, more than any other art form, has the ability to address distinctly Australian concerns.  It can reveal how a nation’s museums not only reflect, but also develop and promote particular values and knowledge.  The very marginality of art practice makes it an ideal method in which to critically examine cultural assumptions and norms, and despite the risk of site-specific art projects becoming a form of institutionalised institutional critique, I have demonstrated how artworks can question institutional authority and highlight gaps in knowledge in a way that curators, historians and museum directors simply cannot.  By recording a range of artistic interventions in Australia’s public museums, and analysing them in relation to both existing site-specific theories as well as my new extended models, this thesis demonstrates not only the complexities of site-specific art practice, but also the role that art can play in interpreting, challenging and re-presenting existing knowledge as mediated by the museum.

Future Pass and Cracked Culture at the Venice Biennale

Courtyard in the Abbazia, Future Pass

Yoshitomo Nara, Future Pass

In this post I want to discuss the exhibitions Future Pass: From Asia to the World and Cracked Culture? The Quest for Identity in Contemporary Chinese Art, both satellite exhibitions to the Venice Biennale.  However, the emphasis is going to be more on Future Pass – I’ve just included a brief comment on Cracked Culture because I found the links between the two quite interesting.  Both exhibitions distinguish their curatorial strategy as being from an Asian or Chinese, respectively, point of view.  However, while the catalogue and didactic texts (of Cracked Culture, in particular), implied that this ‘different perspective’ would present quite a different exhibition to shows imagined by ‘investors and curators in the west’ (Cracked Culture catalogue), both Future Pass and Cracked Culture showcased the same familiar artists, styles, and iconography that I see in, say, Australia’s Asia Pacific Triennials.

Kwon Kisoo, in Future Pass

In the garden, Cracked Culture

The thing that surprised me the most about Future Pass was the proliferation of cute.  If I’d read the short catalogue beforehand, I no doubt would have been more surprised. The curatorial statement is incredibly serious, which seems at odds to a lot of the seemingly depthless artwork on display.  The exhibition is spread over two locations: Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana in Cannaregio, and Abbazia di San Gregorio in Dorsoduro, and each location has a number of dichotomous themes.  The Palazzo hosts the ‘Virtual/Real’, and ‘Cosplay’ [is Cosplay dichotomous in itself?], and the Abbazia focuses on ‘East/West’, ‘Past/Future’, ‘Yin/Yang’, ‘Universe/Self’.  Because I hadn’t read the catalogue beforehand (which is normal for me), I didn’t realise that the curators had based the exhibition on such sober concepts, and even after flicking through the large number of photos I took during my visit, I still can’t quite resolve the relationship between the artworks and the above mentioned philosophical notions.  

Chang Chia-Ying

Future Pass seemed overly painting heavy.  The sculptures tended to be shiny, finished, and acrylic.  Most works were self-contained, which was a departure from so many of the Biennale exhibitions that appear to favour installation or performance, ie. more immersive works of art.  The emphasis on figuration was also noticeable, mostly human figures or cute robotic shapes, anime-like figures, cartoons (including a few Disney character pastiches – something that I think was exhausted a long time ago).  

Lelya Borisenko

Angelo Volpe

Luo Dan

Chen Hongzhu

Kaikai Kiki (Chiho Aoshima)

Aldo Lanzini

Joyce Ho & Craig Quintero

at the Abbazia

Sometimes it’s good to make the viewer work a little, but there was little ambiguity in most of these works.  I felt spoon-fed. 

Palazzo

Mapi Gill

Mapi Gill

The works that I found the most interesting were those that had some relationship to their surroundings, something that happened more in the Palazzo than the Abbazia.  Without reading the catalogue, I was a little unsure whether the heads of the frescos slightly visible above the Mapi Gill paintings were deliberate.  I’m still not 100% sure, but I hope it was. Shy Gong’s Baby Angel was obviously deliberately placed against the ornate wall decorations.  It probably would’ve looked better with a more creative plinth or other presentation, but I enjoyed the relationship between the site and ‘angel’. 

Shy Gong

The rest of the works didn’t have enough of a dialogue with the palazzo to warrant the curators' strong reference to the ‘white cube’ in the catalogue.  They declare that the ‘contemporary artworks interact with, and sometimes almost seamlessly blend into, the historic buildings in which they are installed’.  Yet it seemed that most of the works sat in these buildings despite their historicism; they were plonked, not placed in any meaningful relationship to the space.  I found myself reflecting on the New Zealand Pavilion exhibition I saw in the same Palazzo at the 2009 Biennale: Francis Upritchard’s beautifully fragile figures.  They weren’t site-specific, but they sat in the space harmoniously, the elaborate surroundings subtly influencing the reading of the works.  Unlike most of the Future Pass works, Upritchard's figures worked with, not against, their surroundings.  It’s no doubt tricky to show works of art in such semiotically loaded spaces as the Palazzo, and I’ve noticed so far that almost no artworks at the Biennale attempt site-specificity (a wasted opportunity in my opinion), but when it’s stated in the catalogue that there is a deliberate ‘interaction’, it’s even more disappointing when the promise is not carried through. 

Francis Upritchard at the 2009 Venice Biennale

Cracked Culture exhibition

I sought out Cracked Culture in the back streets of Dorsoduro, because I have a particular interest in Mainland Chinese art, having studied in China.  I was disappointed in the works, and I found it difficult to swallow the strong statement of difference mentioned at the beginning of this post.  The work with water spewing out of a McDonald’s arch into a blow-up paddle pool, for instance, was about as predictable as the Mickey Mouse pastiches in Future Pass.   

However, there were a few works that I really enjoyed in Cracked Culture, such as the video projected on a pile of the university’s chairs (the exhibition was spread over two university art campuses), and the flattened fire hydrants sitting in the stairwell, although I found the absence of labels for these two works odd (the opposite problem to Future Pass’s invasive labelling habit).  I was also amused at the ‘exhibition continues’ arrows that lead to a seemingly empty classroom.  Were the confused visitors looking around the room part of an obscure performance artwork? 

a lovely label obscuring Wen San Su's chair, Future Pass

 Overall, Future Pass and Cracked Culture showcase an absurd number of artworks between them (Future Pass, for instance, had 106 artists participate).  Yet at the end of the day (literally.  It takes almost a day to cover all four locations), I felt like I could probably count the number of artworks I vaguely enjoyed on both hands.  Maybe I don’t get it, maybe you need to be ‘into’ cute to appreciate the Future Pass works, but basically, I found it difficult to swallow the hyperbole.  I wish the exhibitions had lived up to their promise. 

Grand Canal rabbit, or officially Fishing Rabbit by No2good, Future Pass

Macro, Rome

After last week’s rant on museum architecture, triggered by two newly built Rome contemporary art galleries, I’m dedicating this comparatively uncritical post to a flaky discussion of some of the works I enjoyed at the contemporary art gallery, Macro.  My original intention was to also discuss the work at MAXXI, the Galleria D’Arte Moderna and the Museo Bilotti, but I need to give my brain a brief reprieve before I start blogging about the Venice Biennale next week. I briefly discuss MAXXI’s architecture in the previous post, which will have to satisfy.

Why Macro?  Because unlike MAXXI, the gallery let me take photos of the art, which makes my life easier (It was made from plaster.  It looked like a lobster. But it was green. It was the same size as a lobster. But perhaps one of the ones that grows off the coast of Tasmania. Oh, I’ve run out of space for anything other than description…).  I can feel a rant on photography in galleries about to spill over, so I might just move on to the art….

As I noted in my previous post, Macro’s been built around a couple of ex-factories: the Peroni brewery and a slaughterhouse, and I’m going to confess now that it was my interest in museum architecture that triggered the pilgrimage to Macro, rather than the art.  I had it in my head for some reason, that Macro was going to be fairly small, but I almost missed my train out of Rome trying to cover it all.  It’s like a maze, a very spread-out maze, which gave the paradoxical impression of being a very empty gallery.  

Ernesto Neto at Macro

Ernesto Neto

The first works visitors encounter are Ernesto Neto’s large ear splittingly loud silver cube, and one of his ubiquitous hanging spice-in-stockings work.  The large space in which Neto’s work is installed is (I’m assuming) Macro’s ‘showcase’ area.  For some bizarre reason, whenever I visit an overseas gallery I encounter one of his works.  I enjoy his clove and cardamom-smelling installations, so perhaps the universe lures me to book tickets to certain locations based on this enthusiasm.  While the scale of Macro’s key exhibition space forces a certain amount of humility in the viewer, it was nothing compared to my experience of his 2006 installation Leviathan Thot in Paris’ epic Panthéon.  Neto’s white bulging organic shapes contrasted in the most bizarre way with the building’s strict symmetry, rich colours and indulgent ornamentation.  The otherwise frosty space was filled with the warm smell of spices contained within Neto’s large bulbous stockings.  In 2006, I’d just finished my undergrad degree in fine arts, and I think this installation was a catalyst for the subject of my PhD: site-specific art.  Basically, what I’m trying to say is Neto’s work at Macro was brill, but I’ve been spoilt by my Paris experience.  

Ernesto Neto, Leviathan Thot (2006), Panthéon

Ridiculously, the other work in Macro’s large space, The Crisis is (Not) Over.  Drawings and Dioramas, was by Dan Perjovschi - another artist who seems to ‘follow me’ OS.  I find his drawings amusing and topical, but I was a little disappointed that the work of a ‘new’ artist wasn’t in that monumental space.  

Dan Perjovschi, The Crisis is (Not) Over.  Drawings and Dioramas

Perino and Vele, Closed for This Week (2002)

I noticed the rough curved concrete supports on the next floor before any of the art.  I was sooooo hoping by that stage that there’d be some sort of didactic text telling me whether they’d bottled beer or slaughtered cattle in the space, but no.  Art was dotted throughout the respectfully white-painted space, such as Perino and Vele’s Closed for This Week (2002), hung between two pillars, and Mario Ceroli’s Goldfinger (Miss) (1965).  I enjoyed the former because it was something that pretended to be another thing, and Ceroli’s work because the ‘back’ of his sculpture still showed the pencil and raw saw-marks of its production.  I think I’ve mentioned my obsession with ‘things that pretend to be other things’ a few times in this blog.  Being in Italy, I probably don’t need to tell you that I’m in trompe l’oeil heaven right now.

Mario Ceroli, Goldfinger (Miss) (1965)

Goldfinger (Miss), detail

Daniel Buren

The Antony Gormley exhibition didn’t interest me very much, nor the sculptures of Sarah Braman, in fact, the room that interested me the most was what you could call a documentary art space, recording the activities of Rome’s alternative art space Galleria L’Attico in the 1960s and 70s. The gallery encouraged cross-disciplinary art, and as I learned from the archived photographs and exhibition posters, it hosted exhibitions by now well-known artists, such as Jannis Kounellis, Joseph Beuys and Robert Smithson.  The posters of Kounellis’ horses particularly caught my attention because Hobart’s MONA has a slightly less high-maintenance work of his that consists of a chair, bowl with knife, and two live goldfish.  If the staff at MONA thought the fish were hard enough, imagine how demanding the horses would be.

A couple of artworks played with the gallery’s architectural features: Daniel Buren’s site specific Dance between triangles and lozenges for three colours (2010) and the art in the two lift-wells, which could only be viewed in full by riding the elevator.  I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to video, so you’ll just have to believe me when I write that it’s worth taking the lift.

spotted in the Macro liftwell

Stay tuned for Venice Biennale posts…

Contemporary art galleries in Rome and the new museum architecture

I’m so lucky.  I’m about to experience the Venice Biennale for a second time as I’ll be working there next month.  In the meantime, I’m studying Italian in Siena for a couple of weeks, and as the title of this post indicates, I just spent a couple of days in Rome.

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna

So, contemporary art in Rome… unfortunately, I didn’t find any small artist-run spaces (shout out if you know of any), but I visited the contemporary art space, Macro, and Rome’s new mega museum: MAXXI (as in art of the XXI century).  I also visited the smaller private gallery, Museo Carlo Bilotti Aranceria di Villa Borghese, and the city’s Modern art museum, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. I very much enjoyed seeing contemporary Italian art, and so I’ll write on the art contained within these museums in my next post, but in this post I’d like to talk about the architecture of contemporary art museums in relation to Macro and MAXXI.

MAXXI: the unassuming streetfront

Macro and MAXXI epitomise the new museum architecture: they showcase innovative architecture while retaining novel elements of the respective original site.  In the case of MAXXI, it’s really only the rather unremarkable (for Rome, at least) street front, but for Macro, it’s features of the gallery buildings’ past functions as slaughterhouse and Peroni brewery (don’t worry, they were separate factories).  I enjoyed both museums, but after visiting a number of galleries whose identity is very much connected to this new style of architecture, I’ve noticed that the declarations of ‘innovation’, ‘difference’ and in some cases ‘challenging the notion of the white cube’, are ironically very similar.

Here are some features of the new museum architecture:

[Update: Dec 2011. I have written a more thorough list at a later post here]

1. Angles. Not right angles, other angles.

National Gallery Victoria (NGV) Australia, Melbourne

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne

MAXXI, Rome

2. Floating (or unlikely) staircases.

MAXXI, Rome

Macro, Rome

cage staircase, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul

3. The walls are mostly white, even if they’re self-aware of the white.  Sometimes they’ll have a few coloured walls just to show that they’re slightly subversive.

GOMA, Brisbane

Macro, Rome

The red to break up the white, Macro, Rome

4. (speaking of which...) A touch of red.

MAXXI, Rome

Ceiling, Istanbul Modern

5. Sexy concrete: polished for the floor; brutally raw or curved for the walls/exterior.

MAXXI, Rome

Istanbul Modern

Cer Modern, Ankara, Turkey

6. At least one ridiculously large room, which will often accommodate small objects.  You will look up at the skylights or beams on the roof (oh, so far, far away) like you would in a church.  The room will make you feel insignificant and humble. Art is god.

Macro, Rome

Macro, Rome

Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project (2004), Tate Modern, in the turbine hall

7. They have toilets with weird sinks. You may or may not get them to function. (I wish I'd taken a photo of the Macro sinks, but it's a bit uncomfortable taking photos in bathrooms)

Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane

8. The building has a previous function as a slaughterhouse, factory or similar (usually) industrial structure:

Macro (ex-slaughterhouse, Peroni factory)

Istanbul Modern (ex-shipping warehouse)

 

Detached, Hobart (ex-Church)

Cer Modern, Ankara, Turkey (ex-railyards)

Tate Modern, London (ex-powerstation)

okay, it's not a gallery per se, but Cockatoo Island's a popular venue for the Sydney Biennale (ex-shipyards, gaol). It's similar to the Venice Biennale's arsenale in this way.  The use of industrial structures for temporary exhibitions is a whole other post...

9. Exposed plumbing or other functional parts of the gallery (also to show awareness of the white cube shiz) 

Pompidou, Paris

Istanbul Modern

MONA, Hobart

10. Rust fetish.  If the rust was not already part of the building prior to its current function as a gallery, ‘new’ rust is manufactured.  Rust fetish not only refers to literal rust, but also aged features in general - old machinery, crumbling bricks, old graffiti...

ACCA, Melbourne (new rust)

10. Site-specific art that responds to unusual or novel aspects of the architecture.

GOMA, Brisbane

Daniel Buren, Dance Between Triangles and Lozenges for Three Colours, Work in Situ (2010)

, Macro

11. A will to get visitors lost.

MAXXI

MONA

12. A funky gift shop, expensive restaurant, and similarly overpriced café.  It will have all three.

Cer Modern

Tate Modern (image credit: Splash Magazines)

Istanbul Modern (image credit: Tesker)

GOMA, Brisbane (with water dragon)

As I wrote earlier, my next post will be on the art contained within the respective museums, but I just had to get this ‘new museum architecture’ theory out there.