Sorting through some folders and files on my laptop, I came across some of my essays, and the notes I had for them, from art college and decided to use them to kick start this blog!
By third year my art practice research mostly revolved around “land/environmental” artists and site-specificity, the latter especially for theory/essay based things. One aspect that interested me was the role of the viewer within such artworks, relating to quotes regarding the requirement of a viewer to validate the artwork. Miwon Kwon suggests that the earliest form of site specific works were concerned with establishing an embroiled relationship between the work and the site which could not be divided, and that it “demanded the physical presence of the viewer for the work’s completion.[1]” The suggestion of a viewer being required to complete the work interested me due to the nature of some of the artists work I had been looking at. Artists who engage in earthworks often produce work of such a fleeting temporary nature, or are often so remote, that engagement with a viewer may not occur. In some cases, the only certain “viewer” is the artist him/herself.
But why is a viewer required to validate the artwork? What exactly does the viewer bring to the work that enables this completion? When speaking about his own work, Richard Serra states that:
“Everyone will derive a different meaningfulness in terms of how they experienced the what. The what is really their subjectivity and so without their subjectivity there is no work.[2]”
This statement supports Kwon’s statement of a viewer being required. It is not just the object (or the artwork) itself, that is important, but the subjectivity of the viewer in how they react or translate the artwork – it is the internal reaction of the viewer that completes the artwork, or could be said makes the artwork. Therefore, it is not enough for the artwork to exist “as is” (ie as a physical object) – it requires the viewer to consider it, validate it and therefore complete it.
This requirement fascinates me in terms of “land/site-specific” artworks that are remote, temporary, or are only experienced by the artist on their own. If an artwork never receives a viewer, can it really be argued that it has not been completed or validated? Can documentation of these type of artworks enable this validation, even although it is not specifically the artwork itself?
All the pathways that can be followed from these ideas interest me, and I am neither in agreement, or in disagreement, with the idea of Kwon’s statement. For me, artworks that may never have a viewer are still fully valid and completed artworks. But on the other hand, so many site-specific artworks, and art involving the land, are embroiled in an interest in connecting the viewer to the land, promoting a relationship with site and connecting the viewer with their surroundings (or the site), rather than the artwork itself, that essentially a viewer is absolutely required to validate or complete the artwork, because the artwork is a tool, or an introduction, to something much more.
[1] M. Kwon, One Place After Another; Site-specific art and locational identity, Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press, 2002, p. 12
[2] BBC: Imagine: Richard Serra: Man of Steel, Broadcast on 25/11/2008 on BBC One