Gillian McIver, Kingsland
‘In order for an artwork to really be site specific and site responsive, it needs to bring together several elements into a kind of rigorous coherency. The time needs to be significant. The moment of activation must be chosen. The place must have some kind of need for activation, a particular state of being or not-being that calls out for intervention into its form. The artist must have some need of the space,e some reason to investigate it, to make his or her impact upon it. The work needs to be right, to sit within the space and not fight the space,e but at the same time have an agency of its own, not just decorate the space. And lastly, the politics of the activation. What are they?’
Site specific art in derelict or semi derelict spaces cannot escape the connotation of the romantic ruin. The challenge then for the site specific artist is to acknowledge the romantic lure of the ruin, and then move on quickly. If the work fetishises the ruin, then it loses any impact it has as artwork, but if it ignores the ruin-value it will fail, because ruin value is always there. Rather the work must work within the ruin, and use what the ruin can offer: textures, empty spaces and voids, colours and shades caused by decay and so on.
In this way the artwork reactivates the site, and lets places “speak.” The art invites the visitor to see the place in a new way, to see the previously unseen.
So what is The King’s Land, when you go and look at it? It’s a series of murals made by a sensitive process of collaging huge (huge!) ink drawings done on fine, thin paper, directly onto the wall. The technique is one that the artist is developing by doing, a kind of action-research. the biggest challenge is to do this kind of black and white ink drawing as monumental art. ACTION RESEARCH /SCALE
It’s not sponsored, commissioned or paid for (not a penny) by anyone – not a foundation, a curator, a museum gallery or institution. It’s not an academic project. It’s the artists own initiative. And in this way he has found a kind of freedom difficult to appreciate.
And unusually, the artist actually lives and has his studio on the estate, he doesn’t come in from elsewhere to make work “about” the place. This is quite unusual in site specific art, where nomadism is almost de rigueur.NOMADISM
McIver, G. (2012), ‘London: The King’s Land as site specific art’ Site Specific Art Available from: http://www.sitespecificart.org.uk/kingsland.html [Accessed 23 October 2019]
‘In order for an artwork to really be site specific and site responsive, it needs to bring together several elements into a kind of rigorous coherency. The time needs to be significant. The moment of activation must be chosen. The place must have some kind of need for activation, a particular state of being or not-being that calls out for intervention into its form. The artist must have some need of the space,e some reason to investigate it, to make his or her impact upon it. The work needs to be right, to sit within the space and not fight the space,e but at the same time have an agency of its own, not just decorate the space. And lastly, the politics of the activation. What are they?’
Site specific art in derelict or semi derelict spaces cannot escape the connotation of the romantic ruin. The challenge then for the site specific artist is to acknowledge the romantic lure of the ruin, and then move on quickly. If the work fetishises the ruin, then it loses any impact it has as artwork, but if it ignores the ruin-value it will fail, because ruin value is always there. Rather the work must work within the ruin, and use what the ruin can offer: textures, empty spaces and voids, colours and shades caused by decay and so on.
In this way the artwork reactivates the site, and lets places “speak.” The art invites the visitor to see the place in a new way, to see the previously unseen.
So what is The King’s Land, when you go and look at it? It’s a series of murals made by a sensitive process of collaging huge (huge!) ink drawings done on fine, thin paper, directly onto the wall. The technique is one that the artist is developing by doing, a kind of action-research. the biggest challenge is to do this kind of black and white ink drawing as monumental art. ACTION RESEARCH /SCALE
It’s not sponsored, commissioned or paid for (not a penny) by anyone – not a foundation, a curator, a museum gallery or institution. It’s not an academic project. It’s the artists own initiative. And in this way he has found a kind of freedom difficult to appreciate.
And unusually, the artist actually lives and has his studio on the estate, he doesn’t come in from elsewhere to make work “about” the place. This is quite unusual in site specific art, where nomadism is almost de rigueur.NOMADISM
McIver, G. (2012), ‘London: The King’s Land as site specific art’ Site Specific Art Available from: http://www.sitespecificart.org.uk/kingsland.html [Accessed 23 October 2019]